Ascension Frigatebird update

Despite lots of people looking for it, including many who travelled here from different parts of Britain, the Ascension Frigatebird has not been seen again. Indeed, the claimed sighting of it flying over the head of Loch Indaal at 4.00 pm on the same day it was seen in Bowmore has not been verified. There was another red herring sighting when it was reported as having been seen sitting on a fishing boat belonging to someone who regularly fishes off Portnahaven. This led to the not unreasonable assumption that it was sitting on the boat while at sea off that village several miles south of Bowmore. Not a bit of it, as the boat in question was moored in Bowmore Harbour at the time!
This morning, I received two more photographs of the bird, taken by some non-birders from Norway who were sitting having breakfast in the Harbour Inn, Bowmore, which overlooks the pier, and saw the bird land on the pier about 8.10 am or about quarter of an hour before Jim Sim spotted it. They were sufficiently intrigued to go outside and photograph it before returning to their breakfast, but didn't realise the significance of what they had seen until showing the photographs yesterday to someone from the RSPB who was manning a stall on the Arran ferry. So thanks very much to Dr Vernon Boanrjee from Stavanger. One of his photos is more or less identical to Jim Sim's, but here is his second one.
Malcolm

Ascension Frigatebird !!!

These two photographs were taken yesterday morning (5th July) at Bowmore Pier by holidaymaker Jim Sim from Renfrewshire and show Britain's (and Ireland's) second-ever record of an Ascension Frigatebird. It was first seen sitting on the pier wall before it took off. Word soon got around the island but, despite lots of looking for it throughout the day, it wasn't seen again until the afternoon when it was reported to have been spotted flying over the head of Loch Indaal. It is likely that a great many birders (=twitchers!) are on their way here, so there will be many more pairs of eyes searching the island and the skies for it today.
There is just one previous record of an Ascension Frigatebird in Britain and Ireland, back in 1953 when one was caught alive on Tiree, dying the next day. Initially thought to be a different species, a Magnificent Frigatebird from Cape Verde Islands or the Caribbean, the bird ended up as a skin in the National Museum of Scotland. It was not until 2003 that it was re-identified as an Ascension Frigatebird! There have been a handful of other Frigatebird sightings over the years, most unidentified as to species but including two definite Magnificent Frigatebirds (one on the Isle of Man in 1988 and one in Shropshire (!) in 2005, both of which were picked up in poor condition, taken into care and later died).
As its name implies, the Ascension Frigatebird is found only on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic breeding on the tiny (7.5 acres) nearby Boatswainbird Island with a population thought to number about 12,500 adults, plus an unknown number of immatures (they don't breed until they are several years old).
This is an immature bird (from the whitish head) and has travelled northwards for a minimum of 4,000 miles. There have been very few sightings more than about 100 miles from Ascension so it is not normally an ocean wanderer.
Frigatebirds get some of their food by piracy, chasing other seabirds until they disgorge the fish they are carrying back to their chicks (just like Great Skuas do), and this is thought to be the reason for their name, but they probably get most of their food by direct capture, snatching fish from the sea surface, not being able to dive, like Gannets, for example.
This remarkable sighting has already been posted on Ian Brooke's invaluable 'IslayBirds' blog, but it didn't seem something we could ignore here!
Malcolm