Husband Shopping by Ken _Gilliland

Vue • Animals • posted on Jan 18, 2012

Open full image in new tab Zoom on image

Hover over top left image to zoom.
Click anywhere to exit.

Members remain the original copyright holder in all their materials here at Renderosity. Use of any of their material inconsistent with the terms and conditions set forth is prohibited and is considered an infringement of the copyrights of the respective holders unless specially stated otherwise.

Description

In a spectacular courtship display, male Magnificent Frigatebirds sit in varying size groups, throat sacs inflated, clattering their bills, waving their heads back and forth, quivering their wings, and calling to females flying overhead. Females land and inspect, looking for suitable mates. They are widespread in the tropical Atlantic, breeding colonially in trees in Florida, the Caribbean and Cape Verde Islands. It also breeds along the Pacific coast of the Americas from Mexico to Ecuador including the Galapagos Islands. Even though the Magnificent Frigatebird spends most of its life flying over the ocean, it will rarely (if ever) land on the water. It spends days and nights on the wing, with an average ground speed of 10 km/hour, covering over 200 km before landing. They alternately climb in thermals, to altitudes occasionally as high as 2500 m, and descend to near the sea surface. The only other bird known to spend days and nights on the wing is the Common Swift. Models: Black Sedges by Martin Frost, Magnificent Frigatebirds (Songbird ReMix Seabirds 2) by me.

Comments (11)

)

adorety

8:12PM | Wed, 18 January 2012

Magnificent! Fantastic bird models and excellent render. Great information too. A fascinating bird. I thought Wandering Albatross could go days without landing too, but I guess they do rest on water. Cool stuff.

)