Today we have part 2 of ecologist Susan Harrison‘s visit to the Dry Tortugas, with today’s photos comprising seabirds. Susan’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. Part 1 is here, and I’ll add the two paragraphs of her introduction below.
Dry Tortugas seabird colonies
Introduction to last part:
The Dry Tortugas are the westernmost of the Florida Keys, lying just over 100 miles from the mainland. These tiny sandy islands, or cays, are uninhabited by people but essential to bird life. They support breeding colonies of some unusual seabirds, and they are the North American landfall for many spring-migrating songbirds.
Dry Tortugas National Park was created to protect these birds, and human visitors can go to only one island: Garden Cay, which supports Fort Jefferson, a huge crumbling installation begun in 1846 and abandoned in 1906. The fort saw use as a Civil War prison, a quarantine, and a coaling station, but its war-worn look is an illusion. Somehow the engineers of the day did not realize that iron fittings exposed to salt water would expand and tear apart its brick walls.
And today’s post:
In an earlier post I showed the migratory birds that use the low sandy islands (cays) of the Dry Tortugas chain as a stopover en route to North America. Today’s post shows another set of birds that rely on the Dry Tortugas: several species of tropical pelagic seabirds that spend most of their lives at sea, and nest on the cays where there are no predatory mammals.
Fort Jefferson, the epicenter of Dry Tortugas National Park, with the rest of Garden Cay on the right:
In April, Magnificent Frigatebirds (Fregata magnificens) circled constantly above the fort. Females have white chests, males are dark with red throat pouches, and juveniles have white heads.
Magnificent Frigatebirds:
The Magnificent Frigatebird breeding colony lies on some tiny islands next to Garden Cay. Their nesting trees were damaged by recent hurricanes.
Frigatebird colony:
Frigatebird carrying nest material:
Thousands of Sooty Terns (Onychoprion fuscatus) and Brown Noddies (Anous stolidus) nest on the sandy flats next to the fort, together with a few of their rarer cousins, the Bridled Tern (Onchyoprion anaethetus) and Black Noddy (Anous minutus). A few miles away, a very small cay supports a colony of Brown Boobies (Sula leucogaster) and Masked Boobies (Sula dactylatra).
Sooty Terns:
Sooty Tern and chick:
Brown Noddy:
Brown Noddies on coal dock pilings:
Brown Noddy pair at nest:
Brown Booby and Masked Booby colony:
Masked Booby:
More widespread seabirds were also present at Garden Cay, such as Double-crested Cormorants (Nannopterum auritum), Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis), and Laughing Gulls (Leucophaeus atricilla).
Double-crested Cormorant:
Brown Pelican:
Laughing Gulls:
Beautiful pictures of beautiful animals! Thank you.
Ahhh, refreshing … and historical …
Was a boat required?
Nice photos. A trip from Key West by fast ferry to Fort Jeff should be on everyone’s bucket list! I thoroughly enjoyed visiting when we lived in Key West. The snorkeling in the old moat is fantastic. One thing, though–the Fort is staffed by park rangers who live there, so the islands are not actually uninhabited. I think I remember that they had a three-week shift, and then a week off back in KW. It was actually kind of weird to see plastic toys (for rangers’ kids) in the fort, and of course the fort does have a gift shop!
Lovely photos. I especially like the Masked Booby in flight, with its clean blue backdrop highlighting the bird.
Beautiful. Thanks for sharing these.
Your double crested cormorant seems to have something curious growing out of her wing-pits.
The laughing gulls seem to have a secret. They look so smug.