An Excerpt from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter of February 6, 2005

MAGNIFICENT FRIGATEBIRD

Magnificent Frigatebird, immature, photo by Cotting White
Immature Magnificent Frigatebird,
photo by Cotting White
Once while Karen was hunched over a pile of shells I called to her to look into the sky above her. When she did, the look on her face was classic, the transfixed expression of a person seeing something both eerie and beautiful. It was a Magnificent Frigatebird almost stationary some 30 feet above her, hanging like a kite in the stiff breeze. In the midday glare Karen saw a silhouette with narrow, bent wings 90 inches across, and a long, deeply forked tail. You can see a picture approximating what Karen saw, see the bird's semitropical US distribution (CBC map link over at the left) and read more about it here.

Magnificent Frigatebirds are "kleptoparasites" -- they sometimes chase down birds of other species and steal their food. This may even amount to forcing victims to regurgitate food already eaten.

One study conducted in Mexico found that Magnificent Frigatebird kleptoparasitism is often a two-step affair. A frigatebird's first attack on a potential victim can often be interpreted as "sizing up the victim." If the victim turns out to be a healthy, strong flier, the frigatebird typically breaks off the chase. But if the victim seems vulnerable, a long chase may take place, ending with an exchange of gut content.

But Karen wasn't concerned with any of that, just with the eerie and beautiful silhouette suspended above her, and I do believe that I saw in Karen's face a glimmer of primal recognition of the fact that the world is more surreal and full of the unexpected than on a sunny day we'd ever like to admit.