Tag Archives: bird

Like a kite string in the sky

White Tailed Tropic Bird Facts: Tail streamers are white and can be up to seventeen inches long. Feeds largely on flying fish.
Tropicbird

White-Tailed TropicbirdPhaethon lepturus

  • Tail Streamers are white and can be up to seventeen inches long.
  • Forages by plunging into water from flight, submerging briefly; sometimes by swooping down to surface without striking water, taking flying fish in the air.
  • May feed most actively in early morning and late afternoon.
  • Courtship displays include two birds flying gracefully in unison, one above the other, with higher bird bending tail down to touch tail of lower bird.

Etymology
Phaethon – Greek mythology- son of Helios; killed when trying to drive his father’s chariot and came too close to earth
epturus: Greek leptós = ‘slender, thin’, and +ourá = ‘tail’

Songs and Calls:

A piping “keck-keck-keck