Magnificent Frigatebirds over Jackass Key, Pinellas NWR Bird Survey: 7-11-17

Magnificent Frigatebirds

They have to find ways to stay aloft as they can't land on the water. Since their feathers aren't waterproof they would drown.

They have been documented to fly as far as 40 miles without a single wing-flap

They are extremely energy efficient and can fly so high by flying into clouds.  They are the only bird that is known to intentionally enter a cloud.  And not just any cloud - a fluffy, white cumulus cloud.  The birds hitch a ride on the updraft, all the way to the top of the cloud.

Male drying his wings

Males have a vivid, fire engine red pouch along their throats that they inflate when trying to attract females.

Male with his pouch partially inflated

Females

They have a 6' wingspan and have the highest wingspan to body weight ratio of all birds.

They can stay aloft for as long as two months at a time and have been documented to soar at more than 12,000 feet, as high as parts of the Rocky Mountains.  There is no other bird flying so high relative to the sea surface.

Juveniles

The breeding period is exceptionally long and young birds are often being fed by the female at one year of age.  They are the only seabird where the male and female are strikingly different.

The males abandon their mate and half-grown chick and leave the breeding colony, presumably to molt and return for another breeding attempt with a different female.  The female then cares for the young for over a year.  This difference in parental care allows the male to breed every year while the female breeds only every other year.

Range map

They rest by sleeping on the wing an average of 41 minutes per day in bursts of 12 seconds each.  They nap while circling at high altitudes in rising air currents where they don't have to flap their wings at all.  They can sleep in the air using either one or both brain hemispheres simultaneously as they continue to soar high in the cumulus clouds (other birds, such as mallards, sleep on the ground using only one hemisphere of their brains while the other hemisphere remains awake to watch for predators).

Look!  Is it another chewy toy?

Powerful