Navassa Island Expedition: White-Tail Tropicbird joins the list

Reef and Fishery Assessment of Navassa Island National Wildlife Refuge

On April 23, 2009 scientists from the NOAA's Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Miami Florida (SEFSC) departed from San Juan, Puerto Rico aboard the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster. Their destination: the Navassa National Wildlife Refuge. Along with the NOAA scientists are researchers from the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (UM/RSMAS), the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and the Director of the Fondation pour la Protection de la Biodiversité Marine (FoProBiM), an NGO based in Haiti.
This work is funded by the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

White-Tail Tropicbird joins the list

The commanding officer of the Nancy Foster Ralph Rogers is an experienced birder and has also been on the lookout for us. Our Ship was near the South side of the island when he saw the unmistakable long white tail of the tropic bird. I quickly joined him on the bridge level borrowed his binoculars and got a nice look for myself. Later in the week we are planning to do some operations near the South end so I’m hopeful my Dinghy will get a close encounter with one of Navassa’s tropicbirds.
Mike - photo wikipedia