Birds of Maldives

We stayed at Hurawalhi, a larger island first (if a quarter mile is considered larger). There were more birds, the white- breasted waterhen ran around, and the common sandpiper came by occasionally. The herons fished from the rocks and the tropicbirds flew about.

White-breasted Waterhen

Common Sandpiper

Grey Heron

Little Heron (Striated Heron)

White-tailed Tropicbird

We were fascinated by the tropicbirds which flew lower than we saw in other places. Instead of nesting on cliffs, they nested in the root structure of trees, and our hosts on each island showed us where a few nests were. On Hurawalhi we saw a larger chick.

 

On Kudadoo we thought we saw a chick that was older since it had a longer tail.

However, after watching for a while, we realized it was an adult with a very small baby.  

Now, we were taking a video that came out really bad with so many branches and leaves, but the transcript (created by Gemini) shows how Chris likes to talk to birds.

Chris: It's moving, see? It's got a little sister or brother in here right next to it. “Are there two of you?”

Mike: I don't think so.

Chris: It is! Oh, I see another one that's younger, “hi!”

Mike: Oh, is that possibly the parent with it? 

Chris: Well, it is a little bigger, but I see the chick, yeah, it's freaking adorable.

Chris: It's tucked down under there.

Chris: What about the other one that you were taking photographs of?

Mike: Yeah, that was the chick. That was definitely the chick.

Chris:How do you know?

Mike: No tail

Chris: .“Well, I'm so sorry that I confused you before. You have a lovely baby. I'll leave you alone now. I believe in leaving mothers alone to protect them. Thank you for the visit. And good luck.”

Mike: Oh, she's moving.

Chris: Well keep looking then, 'cause you might see the baby. So the baby... you might be able to see it by doing this. Let's see. “We just wanna see your baby.” Oh yeah, yeah, “hi! “ It's... oh, it just opened its mouth. If you come right here, you can see it.

Mike: I see it, I see it, I see it.

Chris: “Someday soon you're gonna grow up big.”

Mike went back the day we departed and the baby was alone, with the mother probably out fishing.  It is freaking adorable.

We saw one other bird, a little tern that flew by Kudadoo at dawn and dusk a few times, but Mike never got a photo, not for the lack of trying.