Today was an amazing day! I had the privilege to view and photograph the Great Frigatebird, the Hawaiians call them 'Iwa. I've photographed a lot of wildlife over the years and really have always tried my best to photograph birds in flight. I thought the soaring eagle or the mighty osprey were challenges to shoot and they were but nothing could prepare me for what I witnessed today. The Great Frigatebird is a large fish-eating seabird whose wingspan can be anywhere between 81-91 inches but the bird itself only weighs around 3 pounds. Contrast this with the majestic 9.5 lbs. bald eagle whose wingspan is 80" or even the brown pelican whose wingspan is 79" and weighs 8.2 lbs.. What does the all this mean? SPEED, AGILITY, and GRACE! Being a seabird it stays mainly out in the open ocean looking for fish, squid or a meal to steal. They can be seen along the coastline and along the cliffs. They don't breed until 9 years of age and the females take over a year an half to raise their young. Their life span is an average of 30 years. I've seen them from a far at different look out spots on Oahu but it never occurred to me that they would need to come inland for freshwater to drink, until today.
It was a mostly cloudy day with hints of blue and occasional sun. The sky would be completely clear of any signs of birds and then in a blink of an eye at least 6 frigatebirds would come swooping down, open their long blue-gray hooked bill, gulp up fresh water, fly back over the cliffs and out to the ocean all before I ever had my camera up. The speed in which they dive is simply incredible and you could actually hear the whoosh of their wings past your ears as they flew by. My only chance of a decent photograph was to get one in focus high in the air and try to stay with it. If you tried to focus closer to the water and hope that you're in the right spot, you'd be sorely mistaken. When they dive, it's not like an osprey straight down, they twist and turn and torque, the dive is insane. I was using the fastest aperture and the fastest shutter speed but it was so hard being handheld to stay locked on the bird, camera shake was inevitable. After pouring through the shots on the computer, I was please to find that there were some keepers to share with you here on the birding page.
I've never witnessed anything like this and I will dream about it for the rest of my life. Please enjoy and if you stare at the photo long enough maybe you too can hear the rush of the wings past your head.
As always, hug your family and love one another!
God bless,
MC
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