Tropicbirds | Phaethontiformes

Keerkringvogels | Rabijuncos

Tropicbirds are seabirds with a compact white body, black markings on the wing and through the eye, and two greatly elongated central tail feathers that trail behind like ribbons. All four toes are joined by webbing, but the legs are short and set far back, so the bird can barely stand and shuffles along on its belly. The wings are long and narrow and are worked with quick, stiff beats broken by short glides; the bill is heavy, pointed and finely serrated along the edge. Outside the breeding season they stay for months over the open ocean, far from land, resting high on the water with the tail feathers held clear of the waves.

Families in this order

Tropicbirds | Phaethontidae3 speciesFish and squid are caught by plunging into the water from a height, sometimes after a brief hover above the waves; the prey is seized underwater and swallowed at the surface. Birds hunt alone or a few at a time, far from the breeding site, and the salt taken in with seawater leaves the body through glands above the eyes. Over the colony small parties fly slowly and close together, bending the tail streamers down and sideways and circling around one another. Nothing is built: the single egg lies in a crevice under a boulder, in a hollow of a cliff face or under dense cover, out of the sun and out of sight. Both parents incubate in turn and bring food back in the crop; between visits the chick is left alone for long spells, and it finally leaves the nest site unaccompanied and heads straight out to sea. At the nest and in display flight the birds give harsh rattling and whistling calls; at sea they are silent.