Fish Without Water

The frigate birds are, in my opinion, some of the most incredible birds I have ever seen. Since arriving in the Galapagos, we have seen thousands of them flying, sitting in trees, eating, and stealing food from other birds. Frigate birds, or Fragatas in Spanish, were made famous by their style of mating. Males sit at the top of trees and blow out their chests, which are bright red and each one looks like a giant bubble. Females circle above and pick the male with the biggest and reddest chest. Seeing the frigates like this is incredible and draws lots of attention.

Another, less known, fact that makes frigate birds special is that they cannot land on or take off from water even though they are seabirds. Amazingly, they survive on fish and seafood. If another bird is flying with a fish, a frigate bird may harass it until it drops its catch. The frigate bird then swoops down and grabs it out of midair. If the bird is an osprey or other strong, tough, and dangerous bird, frigates work in packs to steal the fish. Sometimes, if the frigate is desperate, it will attack birds eating fish on the water. They dive at birds as they surface and rip half a fish out of the startled bird's mouth. In order to do these tricks, they fly extremely well and are quite agile; allowing them to perform swoops and dives with ease while other birds would never dream of even attempting them.

The second way frigates get seafood without touching the water is by far the most challenging. They use their incredible flying skills to grab any fish jumping out of the water, most commonly flying fish. The frigate needs to get quickly down to the surface of the water and then pull out of the dive with perfect precision. If they dive at the wrong time, they miss the fish; if they fail to pull up, they twirl out of control. If they do twirl out of control, the birds will either catch themselves or fall into the water and probably die. Using this tactic, they only catch a fish ten percent of the time.

The last tactic for getting food is the most fun to watch. The frigates grab dead bits of fish from the surface without nicking the surface with anything but their beak. They start by pretending to land on the water right in front of the bit of food. In the next moment, they launch their heads at the food while beating sharply down with their wings, sending them flying away from the water with food in their beaks. The birds seem to succeed almost every time. While frigate birds are popular in the tourism industry, they are very unpopular in the fishing industry as they will steal the fisherman's catch.

Frigate birds are named after a type of ship from the age of sail. A frigate was a ship with three fully rigged masts and 24-38 guns, cannons, kept on a single gun deck. A fully rigged mast is a mast with one large lower sail, another smaller one raised above the first and two small top sails at the top of the mast sitting side by side, all square rigged.  A square rigged sail is one that is stretched between two bars, called yard arms, in the shape of a square. With so many sails, the boats were fast, agile, and could handle almost any type of weather. They were able to dodge quickly around large ships and beat to windward well. Frigates normally sailed on their own or in packs of two or three. They would dodge around a larger ship peppering it with shots until the big boat was forced to surrender, mimicking the way a frigate bird harasses an albatross into dropping its catch.  Frigates and frigate birds share the name man- of-war and are famous for being fast and quick-to-turn. Almost all pirates sailed frigates because of their speed and their ability to, if captained well, reliably defeat larger ships.

For all of these reasons, I love seeing frigate birds at work. They are also easy to pick out because of their special wing and tail shape. The wing, going from body outward, was swept forward, then back. The tail is made up of two long feathers that twist towards and away from each other to help the frigate fly with its other-worldly skill. Watching them battle other birds, including each other, for survival, always interests me and their flying skills always leave me in awe. – Porter