Gannets and cormorants | Suliformes

Families in this order

• Frigatebirds | Fregatidae2 speciesA family of five tropical seabirds. In the region Magnificent Frigatebird is common along almost every coast; Ascension Frigatebird has been recorded as a vagrant in the Bahamas. Relative to their weight, frigatebirds have the largest wing area of any bird: long, narrow, sharply angled wings and a deeply forked tail. They rise high on updraughts and glide long distances, often without a single wingbeat. Their plumage is not waterproof and the legs are short and weak, so they do not swim and alight only on trees, shrubs or rocks. They snatch flying fish and squid from the sea surface in flight and also chase boobies, tropicbirds and terns until these drop their catch. They breed in colonies in mangroves and shrubs on islands, such as on Barbuda. There males inflate a bright red throat pouch to attract females. The single young is fed by the parents for a long time, so that females often breed only every other year.
• Gannets and boobies | Sulidae4 speciesLarge seabirds with a cigar-shaped body, long pointed wings and a wedge-shaped tail; the heavy conical bill has no hook, but its finely serrated cutting edges hold a slippery fish. The eyes are set well forward and give the depth judgement the plunge dive demands: from ten to thirty metres up the bird falls into the sea with its wings swept back, air sacs under the skin of head, neck and breast absorbing the impact. Over the cold upwelling along the west coast they hunt shoals of sardine and anchovy in dense swarms, alongside seals, dolphins and shearwaters. The gannet breeds in colonies of tens of thousands of pairs on a handful of rock islands and guano platforms, one egg a year on a raised mound of droppings and seaweed, while the boobies of the genus Sula nest more loosely and in smaller numbers in the tropical waters off the eastern coasts and islands. The chick hatches black and naked and needs three to four years to reach adult plumage.
• Darters | Anhingidae1 speciesA small family of four species found in tropical and subtropical fresh waters. In the region it is represented by the Anhinga, mainly on Cuba and Trinidad and in smaller numbers elsewhere, including the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands. It resembles a slender cormorant with a long, fan-shaped tail and a very long, thin neck. A hinge between the eighth and ninth vertebrae lets the kinked neck spring forward, so that the bird spears fish underwater on its straight, pointed bill. It often swims with the body submerged and only head and neck showing, which earned it the name 'snakebird'. The plumage is wettable, which reduces buoyancy and allows silent stalking underwater; afterwards the bird perches for long periods with wings spread to dry. In flight it alternates flapping with glides and soars on thermals. Anhingas breed in trees over water, often alongside herons and cormorants.
• Cormorants | Phalacrocoracidae2 speciesLong-bodied dark waterbirds with a long neck and a bill sharply hooked at the tip: the fish is gripped, not speared. They dive from the surface and swim under water with both feet at once; the legs are set far back, which makes walking laboured, and the stiff wedge of a tail works as a rudder. The plumage lets itself be partly soaked, which cuts buoyancy but obliges the bird to dry off after fishing with its wings half spread — the posture the whole family is known by. The nest of sticks or weed stands in a colony on rock, in trees or in reedbeds; three or four pale blue eggs under a chalky coating, and naked young that put on black down within days.