Annals of Pelagic Birding in Ohio: Magnificent Frigatebird

No one who has watched frigatebirds can fail to appreciate their exquisite powers of night.Their abilities to float motionless on a breath of air.or to maneuver aerobatically lo harass and rob other birds.are unmatched.Among all species in the bird kingdom, they possess the lowest ratio of body weight to area of wing surface.Seabirds that never deliberately alight on the water, nesters whose weak feet make them uncomfortable on the ground, they are truly creatures of the ocean of air.Thus, though the world's five frigatebird species are sedentary as to their normal tropical ranges, they have ridden hurricane winds and other atmospheric disturbances to far distant cli mes.Three have been recorded in the US: great frigatebird Fregata minor (with one record in Oklahoma and two in Ca lifornia), lesser frigatebird F. oriel (one record in Maine), and the magnificent frigatebird F. magnificens.The latter is most familiar to US birders, with a year-round presence off Florida's shores.including nesting colonies in red mangroves at the Marquesas Keys through 1988 and since then at the Dry Tortugas.The magnificent is the largest frigatebird and the least pelagic, breeding in the tropics of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.Its North American occurrences beyond Florida-and there are many, extending to north to Newfoundland and Alaska and as far inland as Kansas-probably represent birds' encounters with weather favoring vagrancy.The predominance of records in the fall represents not postbreeding dispersal (frigatebirds breed throughout the year) so much as unsettled weather during hurricane season in the tropics.Of 39 records in 12 states and provinces in our inland region.all but three April records.three August records.and four records from July (one including a June date) occurred in September or October.Ohio has four records of this species, three of them between late September and mid-October, and one from spring.Only one has come from near Lake Erie.Oliver Davie ( 1898) mentions the first record as follows: "A specimen.which is now in the possession of Dr. Renshaw, of Sugar Grove, Ohio, was taken by Mr. Emmet Adcock in Fairfield County, Ohio, in the spring of 1880."He offers no further details, and the specimen's whereabouts are unknown.Missing nineteenthcentury spec imens are a familiar story, but whi le probably this bird was correctly identified as to the genus Fregata.determination as to species is not ~asy even a century later (Howel l 1994); absent the specimen or further written documentation one may legitimately doubt the conclusiveness of the identification in this case.even though F. magnificens is by far the likeliest candidate.This Ohio record was the first for the Midwest.Interestingly.first records for Kansas and Wisconsin also occurred in 1880, both in August. 32The Ohio Cardinal MAGNIFICENT FRIGATEBIRDOhio's next two records came genera ti on~ later.and on successive days.Trautman ( 1968) mentions "In a ll:ttcr dated I 0 No\ ember 196 7 from Mr. Emerson Kemsies and from newspaper accounts I learm:d or the finding of the second Ohio record, a bird that had been 'picked up dead in an eastern suburb• of Cincinnati on 29 September."'Randle ( 1981) reports the same record: "I\ second specimen is here at Cin. Mus. of at.History.This bird was brought in to the Cin.Zoo in c.,piring condition on 9-29-67 ... it had been found in a suburban yard flopping \\Cakly:• 'ed Keller (pcrs.comm.)relates a 5 Ma) 2003 conversation \\ ith John Rutl1\ en as follows: Vol.27.No. l • Autumn 2003 Annals of Pelagic Birding in Ohio: Magnificent Frigatebird Bill Whan

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