Juvenile Red-billed Tropicbird

Sightings
It was nearing the end of the breeding season and this juvenile Red-billed Tropicbird on Little Tobago was an excellent find. We had few sightings of this species and this was the only juvenile bird which we saw. It was close to a nest with an adult sitting but it was unclear if this juvenile had fledged on that nest. During the time we were on Little Tobago, the bird stayed near the viewing platform and hence was close to people. It was photographed with a long lens so was further from the camera than it appears from this photograph.

Species
Red-billed Tropicbird Phaethon aethereus is one of only three species in the Tropicbird family Phaethontidae. There are three subspecies of which P. a. mesonauta is found in the Caribbean.

Status and Distribution
The species is of least concern but it has a small and decreasing global population of between 3,000 and 13,000 in its huge range of 136 million square kilometres. It is a local but common resident on islands off east and north east Tobago in the breeding season but rare off Trinidad. Red-billed Tropicbird has the smallest range of the three tropicbird species, yet it still ranges across the neotropics, as well as the tropical Atlantic, eastern Pacific and Indian oceans.

References
BirdLife; Wikipedia; World Bird Names; Kenefick, M., Restall, R., and Hayes, F. (2015) Birds of Trinidad and Tobago, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 44

Photograph
The bird was photographed at 1/500th of a second at f8 and ISO 200.