Red-billed Tropicbird
Where to Look
- Prince Phillip's Steps
- Punta Suarez
Similar Galapagos Species
Royal Tern
Identification
Unmistakeable, the only commonly recorded tropicbird in the Galapagos. Adult’s long bright red bills, pied plumage and tail streamers are diagnostic. Juveniles have yellow bills and lack adults’ extravagant tail streamers.
Description
Adults are overall white with black barring on their backs, bright red bills and a black mask running through their eye and long white tail streamers. In flight their black wing tips are visible. Males and females are similar, with males having longer tail streamers on average.
Galapagos Distribution
Can be found throughout the archepelago, breeding on steep inaccesible cliffs, but tends to avoid the cold channel between Fernandina and Isabela.
Global Distribution
This species has a very wide distribution, occuring around most tropical islands in the east Pacific and Atlantic Oceans as well as the Persian, Gulf, Gulf of Adeen and Red Sea around the Arabian Penninsula. This being said, it is by far most abundant in the East Pacific and often rare on many tropical islands in other regions.
Status in the Galapagos
A common resident throughout the archipelago, with several thousand pairs breeding in the Galapagos each year. Although some individuals my disperse away from the Galapagos (Galapagos birds have been found as far as Hawaii), many can be found around their breeding coloies year round. Previously, the Galapgos population has been described as a unique subspecies called P.a. limatus, but most authorities now reject this. The accepted subspecies which occurs on the Galapagos (and throughout the Pacific, Carribean and North Atlantic), P.a.mesonauta, is one of three subspecies worldwide.