ANATOMY OF BIRDS
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS
CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS
LIZARD-TAILED BIRD
AMERICAN TOOTHED-BIRDS
THE OSTRICHES
THE RHEAS
EMEUS AND CASSOWARIES
THE TINAMOUS
THE KIWIS
THE PENGUINS
LOONS AND GREBES
ALBATROSSES & PETRELS
STORK-LIKE BIRDS
GOOSE-LIKE BIRDS
FALCON-LIKE BIRDS
FOWL-LIKE BIRDS
CRANE-LIKE BIRDS
PLOVER-LIKE BIRDS
CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS
THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS
Birds and Birding's Guide to:
Watching THE STORK-LIKE BIRDS
Tropic Bird Behaviour
The Tropic-birds are strictly birds of the ocean and are often seen hundreds of miles from land. Not infrequently when thus far from shore they come, in a more or less exhausted state, to find rest in the rigging of a ship.
Although they fly for great distances their flight is not the easy, graceful motion of, for instance, an Albatross, but consists of regular and rather rapid strokes of the wing, without any apparent intermission.
Their food consists largely of fish which they capture by dashing perpendicularly into the water after the manner of the Terns.
The Tropic-birds make no nest or but a slight one and deposit their single egg in holes or crevices in rocks, occasionally in a hollow tree or on the bare sand. The egg is about 2.10 x 1.55 inches,”dilute claret-brown or whitish speckled, sprinkled, spotted, or blotched with deep claret-brown.”
The birds during incubation sit closely and fearlessly, allowing themselves to be pushed aside or taken in the hand with no more of protest than a sharp stroke with the bill or a hoarse cry; both sexes take part in incubation.
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