Bermuda Longtail in Flight

by Jeff at JSJ Photography

Title

Bermuda Longtail in Flight

Artist

Jeff at JSJ Photography

Medium

Photograph - Photographs

Description

White-tailed Tropicbird or Bermuda Longtail (Phaethon lepturus catsbyii)

The White-tailed Tropicbird is almost always known in Bermuda has the �Longtail� because of its distinctive tail feathers. This species is well known and much loved locally as the first sign of spring. Longtails are relatively large birds; adults can measure up to 30 inches (76cm) including the tail feathers, with wingspans up to 3ft (1m). The distinctive tail is composed of two extremely long feathers, surrounded by other short ones.

The Longtail is an open ocean species that only comes in to land to breed. It is a cavity-nester, which lays its single egg in holes and crevices eroded from the soft limestone of Bermuda�s coastal cliffs. When not in Bermuda, Longtails are at sea feeding on squid and open ocean fish, like Ocean Robins.

Pairs of birds can be seen in aerial courtship throughout April, and a single egg is laid at the end of April and beginning of May in the nest cavity. The egg is incubated in turn by both parents with most hatching in June or July. The parents return to the nest over the course of the summer with squid and small fish for the growing chick. The chicks fledge (fly from the nest) in late August and September when the parents stop brining it food. Fledging from a cliff face over the ocean is a dangerous operation for a chick.

Longtails are protected by law under both the Protection of Birds Act 1975 and the Protected Species Act 2003. This protection extends to the birds themselves, their eggs and their nest sites. Intensive management to improve conditions for tropicbird breeding success are ongoing in the Castle Harbour Islands Nature Reserve. Activities include active control of rats and the installation of artificial nesting chambers (igloos) to supplement the stock of nest sites. Longtail Igloos are also available to the public through the Bermuda Audubon Society and the Department of Conservation Services and can be installed on coastal property. Monitoring of nests indicates that artificial nests are readily accepted by the birds, and the percentage of chicks successfully raised in them is high (Madeiros, 2011). Despite these efforts, Bermuda�s population of nesting Longtails is declining.

SOURCE: Government of Bermuda, Ministry of Public Works, Department of Conservation Services, http://www.conservation.bm/longtail-white-tailed-tropicbi/

UPDATE: Jeff at JSJ Photography sold a 16.00" x 9.00" print and a pack of greeting cards of "Bermuda Longtail in Flight" to a buyer from Fairfield, CT, in October 2014--THANK YOU TO THE BUYER!

Thanks to the buyer from Shannock, RI who bought a 5" x 7" Greeting Card on Glossy Paper of "Bermuda Longtail In Flight" on 17 May 2017!

SOLD: Thanks to the buyer from Bellingham, WA who bought my photo artwork "Bermuda Longtail in Flight" printed on a T-Shirt on 07/23/2019! ~Jeff at JSJ Photography

Uploaded

March 23rd, 2014

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