Red-billed Tropicbird on Lord Howe Island – an update

Hank Bower, senior author of the submission to BARC, tells me that the bird is still there and showing daily. I saw it on 19 November. A photo of mine of the bird on the ‘nest’ is on Eremaea and hopefully on Birding-Aus (Russell?). The ‘nest’ is atop a 180 m precipice and I accessed it with Ian Hutton carefully guiding my every step down a rather precarious 20 m scramble, dislodging rocks enroute, from a formed walking track above. For safety reasons this has now been closed so observing the bird in its niche is not now allowed. But the bird can still be seen from a viewing ledge above as it moves out from the roosting/nesting cavity and then in flight soaring with Red-tailed Tropicbirds over the cliffs below. That is unless the cloud level drops to envelop the mountains as it did the day I was there! For me, this had one advantage as the surrounding cloud dispelled the vertigo I experienced in clearer air with the potential fall visible as I climbed to the nest! It usually starts to call, a loud repeated Kestrel like ‘kek’, gets restless and eager to take a flight about midday but also does so later in the afternoon. As one might expect its plumage matches that of the subspecies mesonauta that occurs in the eastern Pacific rather than the nominate race from the tropical Atlantic or indicus from the far NW Indian Ocean.

Mike Carter 30 Canadian Bay Road Mount Eliza VIC 3930 Tel (03) 9787 7136

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