The white-tailed tropicbird

　　
　　The white-tailed tropicbird found in the road near Colebrook reservoir.
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FALLS VILLAGE—Most of us have wondered at the ability of birds to travel thousands of miles between northern climes and their South American winter homes but recently this region had an unusual visitor who made the trip unwillingly, blown in on the winds of Hurricane Irene.
Wildlife rehabilitator Linda Bowen of Falls Village was host on Sept. 10 to a white-tailed tropicbird—Phaethon lepturus for those who like their birds with Latin names—that had been picked up sitting in the middle of the road near the Colebrook reservoir. These birds, natives of Caribbean, are rarely seen in North America—in fact, they are so rare that none of the people who came in contact with the visitor had any idea what he was.
The bird’s original rescuer called the rehabilitator saying he believed he had a tern, but, as few people can recognize terns, Ms. Bowen was skeptical and believed he had a sea gull.
“When the rescuer arrived and opened the box, I was surprised to see that the bird had a single, very long—perhaps 14-inch—tail feather,” she said. “The rescuer asked me what it was. I said, quite frankly, ‘I have no idea!’”
Subsequent consultation of field guides proved the bird’s southern origins. This began the saga of the first recorded sighting and rehabilitation of a White-tailed Tropicbird in Connecticut.
The bird, buffeted by the hurricane winds and swept more than a thousand miles from home, appeared to be slightly dehydrated, but had no visible signs of trauma. Ms. Bowen noticed that his legs were positions fairly far back on his body, which explained the rescuer’s report that the bird didn’t walk much.
“These birds spend almost all their time in air,” reported Ms. Bowen. “They even sleep in the air, riding on thermals. They will dive into the water, maybe 10 or 20 feet deep, catch a fish and gobble it down on the way back to the surface. Then they take off again. They don’t loll around on the surface like a sea gull.”
Ms. Bowen quickly gathered information about the bird as she attempted to stabilize him so that he could be returned to his natural environment. The rescuer revealed that he had the bird for at least a week and had been feeding it thawed smelt, which the bird readily accepted. He also bought it chopped octopus, apparently a treat for the refugee.
Without any knowledge of the species, the rescuer had hit close to home for the bird’s diet, which naturally consists of fish and squid. The docile bird dined on chopped clams for his first night at the rehabilitator’s. She also sought to rehydrate him by offering him water from a long curved-tip syringe. “When he bit at the tip of the syringe, I was able to push the tip beyond the glottis and he swallowed several times,” she reported.
Housing the bird required some ingenuity. Ms. Bowen set the bird up in a large crate to accommodate his very long, single feather, sometimes referred to as a “streamer,” arranging sheets under him to protect his keel, an extension of the sternum. With the bird fed and comfortable, she pondered her next step.