* White-tailed Tropicbird  Phaethon lepturus

Texas Coastal / Offshore Status: One Documented Record,, 3 July 2010, Padres Island National Seashore. Bird was injured/sick, recovered at rehab facility and released.

Similar Species: Red-billed Tropicbird can be distinguished from White-tailed Tropicbird in both adults and juvenile plumage by having black primary coverts. Compared to juvenile White-tailed, juvenile Red-billed also has an eyeline that meets behind the nape and a more finely barred back.

Never Seen on Texas Pelagic trip. Accidental in Texas.
* Texas Review Species, requiring written or photographic documentation to TBRC. 

Seasonal Occurrence Graph

Texas Pelagics Sightings Distribution 

Map 1) The live Google map above shows the geographic distribution of White-tailed Tropicbird found in Offshore Texas from lat-long data I’ve captured from 35 years of Texas Pelagics. 
Click on the box in the upper left of the map to view the map legend.
Click on each sighting symbol and the data label will appear showing the time, date and the number of birds seen.
Click on the symbol on the top right of the map to view a larger map.

The next two map images are copied from eBird.

Map 2) The map below is zoomed into Texas and Louisiana to show individual locations.

Map 3) The bottom map is zoomed out to show the GOM, the northern Caribbean Sea and the adjacent western tropical Atlantic ocean. 

 The photo above is of the first and only record of a White-tailed Tropicbird for Texas. It was found washed up on the beach of North Padre Island following Hurricane Alex on July 3, 2010. This bird was rehabbed and subsequently released.  

All the photos below are from a coastal White-tailed Tropicbird seacliff breeding colony on the north shore of Puerto Rico from January, 2024

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