Figure 70. This adult Red-tailed Tropicbird was photographed on 16 September 1995 about 46 nautical miles off Rocky Pt. in Monterey County. Most California sightings of this species occur even farther from the mainland (1996-078; Mike Danzenbaker).

 

Figure 71. Occurrence by month of Red-tailed Tropicbirds in California.

 

Figure 72. Distribution of 22 Red-tailed Tropicbirds accepted through 2003, most of them far off the southern and central coast. Not mapped is the 6 September 2003 record of a bird that may have been in Mexican waters. Unique is the 10 July 1999 onshore record of an adult that flew over Bolsa Chica in Orange County (see also Appendix H).

 

 

 

 

RED-TAILED TROPICBIRD Phaethon rubricauda Boddaert, 1783

Accepted: 22 (88%)	Treated in Appendix H: yes
Not accepted: 3	CBRC review: all records
Not submitted/reviewed: 1	Color image: none

The breeding ranges of the Red-tailed and White-tailed Tropicbirds overlap, but the former disperses more widely away from its tropical and subtropical breeding islands (Gould et al. 1974, Pitman 1986). Most or all of California’s Red-tailed records presumably refer to P. r. melanorhynchos, which breeds in the western, central, and southern Pacific Ocean, including Hawaii. Recent observations indicate that these birds regularly roam to waters more than 200 nautical miles off the Pacific coast between central California and Oregon, with the edge of the normal range overlapping California’s official state waters to some extent (P. Pyle in litt.). A bird was recorded approximately 227 nautical miles off the Oregon coast on 26 August 2005 (NAB 60:128), and the northernmost record for the eastern Pacific Ocean refers to a 5 June 1992 specimen from Vancouver Island, British Columbia (Campbell et al. 2001).

California’s first Red-tailed Tropicbird was an adult seen on 3 July 1979 at Southeast Farallon Island, but nearly all of the subsequent records have been from more than 50 nautical miles from the mainland (Figure 72). The only onshore incidence involves an adult that astonished a group of birders on 10 July 1999 when it buzzed the strand at Bolsa Chica, Orange County. The California records fall between 3 July and 29 January, and roughly seven out of ten (15 of 22) have been found between 8 August and 15 October (Figure 71); see also Appendix H. Most involve birds more than a year old. The CBRC is reconsidering a 2003 record from far off the southern coast that may have been outside the geographic region under the CBRC’s purview (see Cole et al. 2006); this record is not mapped.