White-tailed Tropicbird, Phaethon lepturus


White-tailed Tropicbird
The graceful White-tailed Tropicbird is regularly seen flying in the vicinity of Kilauea Point Lighthouse at the north tip of Kauai during its breeding season from February to November, along with its near relative the Red-tailed Tropicbird. This spectacular spot for ocean birds also is home to a nesting colony of Red-footed Boobies. Whitetails nest on ocean islands around the tropics and sub-tropics, and range far and wide over the oceans in the same climate belt outside of breeding season.


White-tailed Tropicbird


White-tailed Tropicbird


White-tailed Tropicbird

White-tailed Tropicbird
A Whitetail possibly being pursued by a Great Frigatebird;  it would more clearly be an attack by the notorious sky pirate if the tropicbird were visibly carrying a fish. Tropicbirds normally swallow captured fish on or under the water surface and do not carry them in flight; they feed nestlings by regurgitation.