DietDiet

Diet

Christmas Island Frigatebirds forage either by scooping up marine organisms or offal floating on the surface of the water or by their piratical habit of harassing other seabirds forcing them to disgorge some of their meal. Their main food is probably flying fish and squid (Gibson-Hill 1947), however they will occasionally take food off land, pick up carrion and offal from beaches, and steal eggs and nestlings. Grasshoppers have also been recorded from stomach contents (Marchant & Higgins 1990). Most nesting adult frigatebirds appear to forage in the waters immediately around the island. Young birds that have not yet reached breeding age and non-breeding adults probably forage much farther afield.

The waters surrounding Christmas Island may be unusually productive. Christmas Island Frigatebird nestlings were fed more frequently than Greater and Lesser Frigatebirds on other islands and grew much faster (Nelson 1972, 1975). Studies of Abbott's Boobys suggested that food availability in the waters surrounding the Christmas Island fluctuate greatly from year to year (Reville at al. 1990).