Frigate Bird Gets Fed.

1-13-12 SHORT HILLS: There are some good shots in the Galapagos-1983 Album. [The link is to the right.] I’ll post a few entries over the next few days using them, to supplement the stories from last week.

Here are a few. These big birds are Frigate birds. They’re so named because they steal fish from other sea birds by diving at them after they make a catch. The males have that red organ on their necks that they inflate during mating season. The females have a white chest. The immature birds have white heads. The immatures hang around the nest tree waiting for the female to return with fish. I don’t know if the males participate in rearing the young.

In this series the female returns to the immature bird with a fish in her crop that the immature gets for dinner. A second immature, either a sibling or a non-relative is on the far right in some of the pix, the second immature tries to steal the first immature’s meal after the female leaves.


"It must be almost dinner time. I wonder where Ma is?"

"Hi, Sweetie, I'm back."

"Have you been a good immature frigate bird?"

"Where's my dinner, Ma?"

"O, I see it now."

"Outta my face, bro."

"Wait for you're own fish."