5/2 The tropicbird chick just over a week old. It is covered with long, thick, silky, pearly gray down. Its bill is dark bluish and it has black feet.White-tailed Tropicbird Chick Has A Stretch ? May 1, 2019
https://youtu.be/RT5akoF-vzk via cornell lab bird cam
While its parent takes a break from brooding, the White-tailed Tropicbird chick stretches, defecates, and switches positions in its nest scrape. Parents brood chicks closely for only the first few days after hatching. After a few weeks, chicks will be left unattended in the nest except for feeding.
The White-tailed Tropicbird Cam is a collaboration between the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Nonsuch Expeditions. You can watch the cam live at
http://cams.allaboutbirds.org/channel/60/White-tailed_Tropicbird/The White-tailed Tropicbird is Bermuda?s only remaining, locally common seabird, with over 3500 breeding pairs nesting on Bermuda during the spring and summer months. Of these, over 600 breeding pairs nest on the Castle Islands Nature Reserve, including about 200 pairs nesting on Nonsuch Island.
On Nonsuch, about 70 artificial ?Igloo? nests have been installed to replace natural cliff cavities which have been destroyed by hurricane erosion and cliff falls during hurricanes over the last 20 years. One of these nests, along the stairway leading up from the Nonsuch dock, has had a new ?Tropicbird / Longtail-Cam? installed so that we can now follow the little-known ?nest life? of this difficult to study species, which is generally more aggressive than the more laid-back Cahow.