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Magnificent Frigatebird | Fregata magnificens
Amerikaanse fregatvogel | Fragata magnífica
The Magnificent Frigatebird is the frigatebird of the Caribbean and can be seen over almost every coast: a large black seabird with long, angled wings and a long forked tail, hanging on the wind for hours without a wingbeat. It cannot swim and does not land on the water; it snatches food from the surface in flight or chases other seabirds until they drop their catch.
Voice
Silent at sea. At the colony males drum a hollow, rattling drrrrr with the inflated pouch, and both sexes clatter their bills.
Recording: Leonardo Ordóñez-Delgado — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
89–114 cm, with a wingspan of over two metres. The bill is long and hooked at the tip, the legs short. The male is all black with a purple gloss on head and mantle and has a red gular pouch, inflated into a large balloon in display and otherwise visible as a red patch on the throat. The female is blackish-brown with a black head and throat, a white breast extending at the sides into the axillaries, and a pale brown bar across the upperwing; the eye-ring is blue. Juveniles have a white head, neck and belly; the white on the head darkens gradually and immature plumage lasts several years.
Confusion species
Confusion is hardly possible in the region. The very rare Great Frigatebird Fregata minor and Lesser Frigatebird Fregata ariel have been reported a few times; Lesser is clearly smaller and the male has a white spur in the armpit. See also Ascension Frigatebird Fregata aquila, the female of which has a dark belly and brown breast band. At a distance a soaring frigatebird may recall a Turkey Vulture Cathartes aura, but that has broad wings and a short tail.
Habitat
Coastal waters, bays, harbours and open sea near land. It roosts and breeds colonially in mangroves and low scrub on islets and cays. It feeds on flying fish, squid and other prey taken at the surface, on fish waste in harbours, and by chasing boobies, pelicans and terns until they release their prey.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Year-round along the coasts of the whole region, from the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Greater Antilles to the Lesser Antilles, the ABC Islands, San Andrés and Trinidad and Tobago. Breeding colonies include Codrington Lagoon on Barbuda, one of the largest in the world, Little Cayman, Great Tobago in the British Virgin Islands, islets off Puerto Rico and Cuba, and the Grenadines. Outside the region along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the Americas, from Florida and Baja California to Brazil and Ecuador, with a small relict population in the Cape Verde Islands.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Frigatebirds hang over almost every harbour and fishing beach. The colony in Codrington Lagoon on Barbuda can be visited by boat; display with inflated red pouches is seen there mainly in late autumn and winter.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Colonies are vulnerable to disturbance, mangrove clearance and hurricanes; the Barbuda colony was damaged by Hurricane Irma in 2017. Birds also become entangled in fishing lines.
Scientific name
Fregata magnificens | Mathews, 1914
Mathews described the species in 1914 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Fregata was introduced in 1799 by De Lacépède. Fregata derives from the French frégate, 'frigate', a fast warship — for the swift flight and the habit of robbing other seabirds. magnificens is Latin for 'magnificent, splendid' — for its size and impressive flight. The specimen the first description was based on came from Santa Fe (Barrington), Galápagos.