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Submitted by: Ed, NC |
The Short Answer: Ed, your photos and description are perfect for a tropicbird. The long trailing tail is a giveaway. From your photo and the locality, I would guess that what you saw is a White-tailed Tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus), the smallest of the world’s three tropicbirds, with a wingspan of about three feet (94 cm). The other possibility would be the Red-billed Tropicbird (Phaethon aethereus), which is a bit larger, with a wingspan of 44 inches (112 cm). The Red-billed Tropicbird flies with shallow wingbeats and even at some height, the red bill is fairly visible. So unless you saw either of those clues, I feel pretty comfortable identifying your birds as White-tailed Tropicbirds.
More Info: The White-tailed Tropicbird spends most of its life flying over the ocean, eating fish and squid off the surface. Their best trick is catching flying fish on the wing … or on the fin, to be more accurate. The White-tailed Tropicbird is found throughout the tropical oceans of the world.
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