Position 18:02.11N 63:05.85W
Freewheel
Julian & Anne Whitlock
Sat 4 Dec 2010 13:07
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St Martin/Simson Bay 27th November - of frigate
birds and boobies......
Another boisterous windward sail from Sint
Eustatius saw us reach St Martin by lunchtime -
32nm in 4 hours heading nearly due north to
give us the best sailing route to the British Virgin
Islands tomorrow. It also gave us the
opportunity to visit some of the biggest chandleries
in the Caribbean and one of our favourite
lunchtime restaurants!
For the whole of our journey today we were
accompanied by a booby, the tropical cousin of
our gannet. Now for some time I have been
worrying about frigate birds. These prehistoric
looking seabirds have the misfortune of not
developing the oil glands all other marine birds
have and hence cannot land or dive into
water. This has to limit their food gathering ability
yet you find these birds everywhere.
According to birdbooks they attack other sea birds to make
them drop their catch which they then pluck
out of the air. Well in all the time we have spent
in the tropics I have only seen them do
this on a couple of occasions and generally there are
no other birds in their vicinity to mollest
anyway....
Frigate birds do have a very long hooked
bill so I have come to believe that they must use
this to catch fish on the surface of the
sea in an opportunistic 'snatch' operation. These birds
are incredibly agile so skimming just over
the sea surface to hunt their prey is a possibility but
again I have never seen them do this. Which
brings me back to our booby. Normally like the
gannet these birds do amazing plunges into
the sea at great speed to catch their fish but ours
today was employing a different approach.
Our rapid sailing progress through large seas
caused many flying fish to explode from
under our bow. The booby flying at mast height to
windward would swoop down and attempt to
catch these fish in mid air with about a 25%
success rate. It was fascinating to watch
as the poor flying fish, trying to escape from one
medium, found itself under attack in
another. Yet because they fly so quickly and manouver
so well when airborn the booby has to be
very adept to catch them. Is this the method of
feeding of our frigate bird
too?
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