JENNIFER Gray, President of the Bermuda Audubon Society presents the third article on Bermuda’s birds, as part of this year’s Caribbean Endemic Bird Festival, organised by the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds.

AS Bermuda’s special harbingers of spring, the longtail has often been regarded as our national bird, stealing the limelight from the true owner of that honour, the Cahow. We all delight in the summer calls and tireless aerial acrobatics of the longtails as they soar along the coastlines and in harbours and bays. Our jewellery stores and local products are adorned with their images and our visitors now regard the longtail as our emblem of beauty and happiness. The Bermuda population of longtails is believed to be the largest in the Atlantic, making it vitally important for the continued survival of the species.

With their aesthetic, spiritual and economic value we believe we must do our utmost to protect this remarkable species.

Longtails are unable to walk on land and consequently search for nests on the wing. It is this constant searching back and forth along the cliffs, combined with their aerial courtship display, which involves touching the tips of the long tail feathers in paired flight, which makes them so conspicuous on our coastline.

The single purplish-red speckled egg is laid in April and hatches in late May. The chick takes approximately 65 days to fledge and departs to sea on its own in late July or early August.

It is not uncommon for some chicks to depart as late as October. Longtails do all of their feeding far out at sea where they plunge from a height onto unsuspecting fish and squid. During the winter months, the population disperses throughout the Sargasso Sea and remains out of sight of land. Longtails sleep on the wing or on the water if it is calm.

As the name would suggest, tropicbirds are found mainly within the tropics, in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Bermuda is the lontail’s most northerly breeding location due to the warming influence of the Gulf Stream. Our race of tropicbird is also found in the Bahamas ant the Caribbean.

The White-tailed Tropicbird or “longtail” as we have come to know it has slowly been declining due to coastal development and the destruction of the limestone cliffs around much of the island. These birds nest in natural cracks and hollows found in our cliff faces.

As the availability of these cavities becomes fewer, they begin to fight over the remaining available space or choose less suitable sites leaving themselves vulnerable to predation and or flooding.

Storm surge from near-miss hurricanes in 1995 and 1999 had a damaging consequence on longtail nesting sites and in the fall of 2003, Hurricane Fabian caused immense damage to cliff faces on the southern coast of Bermuda where the greatest number of longtails nest each year.

There is certainty that the longtail population is in decline and faces additional threats with each new year. In 1975 it was suggested that the longtail population had declined fivefold since primeval times, from an estimated 10,000 plus pairs to an estimated 3,000 pairs.

Now three decades later their numbers teeter on a ballpark 2000 pairs. In addition to loss of habitat they have suffered competition with feral pigeons (for nest sites), predation or invasion by feral cats and dogs and undeniably the serious impact of declining bait stocks and ever-increasing marine pollution.

The Bermuda Audubon Society has implemented a programme to assist the survival to the longtail. Artificial nests for longtails, developed and fabricated initially in 1996, have proven to be highly acceptable replacements for natural cliff crevices and nest sites.

These dome-like igloos made from styrofoam are coated with cement-base fibreglass chop slurry for strength and durability in the harsh marine environment. A longtail igloo is typically set into an ocean-facing cliff with cement and camouflaged with natural rock and coastal plantings.

The Departments of Conservation Services and Planning have joined the Audubon Society in encouraging developers in coastal areas to include the fabricated nests in their structures. Those who have installed such nests on their properties enjoy countless hours of gratification watching over nesting longtails and their young. They are also helping in the species survival.

The Audubon committee and our partners have worked very hard to prepare and install igloos along the coast, especially on the Castle Harbour islands which were so badly damaged by Fabian in 2003. In more recent months we have assisted with the installation of many igloos on privately owned coastal properties and in a number of our nature reserves.

The artificial nests are available to the public from the Society along with information on installation. Why not add longtails to your coastal view this summer? Longtails are beautiful and entertaining and if you live on the coast, they need your help.

For more information, contact: info@audubon.bm