Ramona

I was sitting next to my first survey point last week, just waiting for the correct allotted time to elapse before continuing my survey.

So there I was, just sitting there, eating a granola bar, when she landed right next to me. Ramona. She is a White Tail Tropicbird. We do not have many here. We see them flying occasionally, but we hardly see them on the ground. But there she was. She landed and waddled her way deeper into the Iron Wood tree. I took a few pictures and then I had to finish my survey.

She was there an hour and half later when I was finished. She was even there the next day. I had an early morning at the internet, like at 5am, and she was still there under the tree. We were all thinking it, but didn’t want to jinx it . . . nest . . . shhhh. Later in the week was Tropicbird Mean Incubation Counts (MICs), how convenient. And this bird was in one of the sectors we had to check. We all wanted to see if she had an egg, but now, in the name of science, we were required to check. Nice! During the MICs, we find active nests. That is nests with chicks or eggs. To check for an egg, you have to tip the adult who is sitting on it to see if she is in fact sitting on an egg. And that is what I got to do. I got to tip her. As I approached her, she was taking a nap. So freaking adorable.

I started to talk to her so that I wouldn’t wake her up with a poke.
That would have been rude. Once she was awake, I noticed how small she was. These birds are much smaller than the Red Tail Tropicbird.

She is the size of a pigeon. She also has two amazing white tail feathers. I continued to talk with her while I tipped her. She had an egg! It was a dark purple and very pretty. I put her back down on her egg and she is still there today, just sitting on her baby. We are avoiding pre-naming the chick. We wish her success and happiness!