This year we have featured seven waterbirds in our Caribbean Water Census graphic! Find out more about each of these beautiful birds in our blog posts and on social media.
This Caribbean Waterbird Census (CWC) featured bird has a love of tropical water and nests in ‘igloos.’ It’s the White-tailed Tropicbird!
White-tailed Tropicbirds are medium-size white seabirds with black markings on the wings, long white tail plumes, and a bright yellow bill. Juveniles have black barring on the back and upper wings, a short tail, and pale yellow bill.
White-tailed tropicbirds use holes in inaccessible cliffs as their nests. This puts them at the mercy of human housing developments on coastlines and severe weather events, like hurricanes and the erosion of coastal cliffs. The loss of natural nesting locations on the island of Bermuda, has led to our colleagues on the island providing artificial nest boxes, nicknamed ‘igloos’ for their shape. Did this conservation intervention work? Yes! White-tailed Tropicbirds readily accept these replacements for their natural cliff holes! Bermuda hosts the largest population of ‘Longtails,’ as they are locally called, in the Atlantic, estimated at 2,000 to 3,000 breeding birds.
Breeding colonies can also be found in the Bahamas and Greater and Lesser Antilles. We understand that in the town of Tarreau on the island of Dominica, there is a pair of White-tailed Tropicbirds that nests in the cliffs. The locals look forward to their return every January!
Watch this video from our YouTube channel to see what the artificial ‘igloo’ nests look like!
CWC 2023 starts on Saturday January 14th and runs through Friday February 3rd. See below for detailed instructions and free downloadable resources to help you make the most of your waterbird counts and don’t forget to keep an eye out for Piping Plovers!