After another night of sailing, I woke up to find we had reached the island of Morane and Matt & the team had not already found landing point on the island, but most of the group were ashore. It was a quick breakfast so along with the other late risers, we could get a jet boat ride to join them. Morane is a low circular coral atoll with an inner lagoon. The island is a wide area of coral with some areas of bushes & trees on it. The tree areas were much denser & it wasn't possible to get inside, as we had been able to on Tenararo.
Brian on the broad, low atoll beach
Morane doesn't have any Rats on it and consequently it has a good selection of breeding Seabirds as well as Tuamotu Sandpipers. One of the best Seabirds here were the Red-tailed Tropicbirds. Tropicbirds look superficially like large, bulky Terns, but they are a family of their own. There are three species in the family: White-tailed, Red-tailed & Red-billed. The first two species are found in the Pacific and Indian Oceans (with White-tailed Tropicbird also occurring in the tropical Atlantic Ocean). Red-billed Tropicbirds are restricted to the sub-tropical & tropical East Pacific, Caribbean, Southern Atlantic Ocean (from Ascension Island to St Helena) & the Red Sea coastline. So far I have only managed to get record photos of White-tailed Tropicbirds on Tahiti & Red-tailed Tropicbirds on Henderson Island. But I was pleased to see reasonable numbers of Red-tailed Tropicbirds breeding here & to get some better pictures of one member of this superb family.
Red-tailed Tropicbird: This is the melanorhynchos subspecies which occurs widely in the Pacific
Red-tailed Tropicbird
Red-tailed Tropicbird
Red-tailed Tropicbird: They were quite acrobatic over the main colony
Red-tailed Tropicbird
Red-tailed Tropicbird: They beat my local Mediterranean Gulls any day
Red-tailed Tropicbird: Look at that translucency in the wing
Red-tailed Tropicbird: An impressive tail
Red-tailed Tropicbird: They are stunning Birds
Red-tailed Tropicbird
Red-tailed Tropicbird
Red-tailed Tropicbird
Red-tailed Tropicbird: A nice sheltered nest site. Like all the Birds we came across on the islands, this chick was very approachable