Brown Noddy

Sightings
This Brown Noddy was one of many sightings during our boat trip to Little Tobago. We were able to get close to the rocky shoreline where the birds were roosting.

Species
Brown Noddy Anous stolidus is a tropical seabird with a worldwide distribution. It is colonial, usually nesting on elevated situations on cliffs or in short trees or shrubs. It only occasionally nests on the ground. A single egg is laid by the female of a pair each breeding season. There are four subspecies of which A. s. stolidus is found on islands of the Caribbean and tropical Atlantic.

Status and Distribution
It is a species of least concern with an enormous world range from Hawaii to the Tuamotu Archipelago and Australia in the Pacific Ocean, from the Red Sea to The Seychelles and Australia in the Indian Ocean and in the Caribbean to Tristan da Cunha in the Atlantic Ocean. It is a common visitor to coastal Tobago breeding on offshore islands. In Trinidad, it is very common on passage from August to October.

References
BirdLife; Wikipedia; World Bird Names; Kenefick, M., Restall, R., and Hayes, F. (2015) Birds of Trinidad and Tobago, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 132

Photograph
Photographed from a moving boat at 1/1600th of a second at f5.6 and ISO 2000.