Red-billed tropicbird

With its namesake bright-red bill and dramatic tail, the red-billed tropicbird is a beautiful and common sight along Saba’s rocky coast. Although they spend most of their time on the wing at sea (where they eat a completely fish-based diet), at night they return to their cliffside nests to rest. The two middlemost tail feathers on both sexes make up an elongated streamer that trails behind the tropicbird in flight, and can grow up to twice the bird’s length.

Many red-billed tropicbirds breed on Saba. In fact, Saba supports the largest breeding colony of this species in the Caribbean. Typically, each mating pair produces one egg, which both sexes incubate over the course of six weeks. Young tropicbirds are extremely downy, looking more like muppets than the sleek, white adults they’ll grow into.

While red-billed tropicbirds can pierce the water’s surface like a dart to catch fish and squid, their preferred food is flying fish, which they pluck from the air without needing to stop. When they dive for food, oil in their feathers acts as a waterproofing agent, and the ocean’s surface — with its sea spray and cresting waves — is a safe haven from larger, less-waterproof birds that might seek to plunder their catch. Another effective way tropicbirds find food is by following aquatic predators that drive fish up toward the surface, such as dolphins or tuna, and simply pilfering a few. 

There are only three species of tropicbirds on Earth, all of which are quite evolutionarily distinct from all other birds. The red-billed tropicbird is by far the most common on Saba, but look closely and you may see a few white-tailed tropicbirds interspersed, which are slightly smaller than their red-billed counterparts and have lighter, orange bills.

Header image by @greglasley (CC-BY-NC).