Frigate bird are cast as the evil marauders in the narrative recited by the Galapagos naturalists. Hovering over the beloved blue footed booby rookeries waiting to make the returning parents regurgitate they appear as natural villains. Somehow tourists forget the murder of the adorable fluffy booby chicks by their older siblings. Here in Polynesia the mythology enshrined in the skies may show another side of the frigate birds. The constellation known in Eurocentric circles as the Crow is on these islands known as the Frigate Bird. Time to reconsider the villain and kleptoparisitism.

In anchorages where a mountain stream flows into the sea, frigate birds appear in the early morning and late afternoon to bath in the fresh water. Like humans, these birds cannot live solely in the ocean. Their dives in the fresh water much feel as refreshing as it is when we put out heads under s gushing waterfall and the salt in our hair dissolves. A large flock of 27 frigate birds cove lived on the cliffs over Hakahetau on Oa Pao. At dawn as we ate our salmon and brie on baguette breakfast the birds circled the boat waiting for a chance to fly through the pool next to the catholic church. After several refreshing dips the flock, rose slowly in the thermals until the entire flock was circling high over us. I stopped frigate bird watching as Karl hauled the anchor and I steered away from the church, the bird bathing site and waves crashing on the beach. As we rounded the headland two clouds of flying fish launched themselves in front of us. Suddenly a pair of frigate bi
rds appear with their long beaks tracing lines in the water where they were scooping up a meal of flying fish. Such skilled fliers.

With grey Oa Poa disappearing behind us, we approached very green Nuka Hiva, a mound of thick lava flows now sliced by erosion and the birds around us changed. Off shore we are surrounded by black terns bird with white caps, boobies and an occasional shearwater. As shore gets close, the white bird who flies close to dark coastal cliffs and the frigate birds appear. Just as I am about to make the case for the redemption of the frigate birds when I see a pair harassing a brown booby. The pair are circling and calling at the booby. I need to watch more.

The first map I got of the Marquesas was a gift from a friend, Maya, who has done many things but just moved to the west coast for an awesome new job. Her new job did not need a map of Nuka Hiva printed by the US Government in 1982 with depth measurements from 1881. I have it here. Not all the bays have numbers but Controllers Bay where we are has depths and indications of the type of bottom M for muddy and SM for sandy mud. We drop the anchor close to 1881 anchor symbol. I put the boat in reverse to make sure we will stay in one place if the wind blows and we accelerate towards the beach. Not good. After several tries we finally are content the boat will not end up on the rocks if the wind blows.

The river that carved the deep valley we are looking up must be a great frigate bath as there is a large flock circling over us. We try to land but are skunked by the huge swell. The steep beach with large brown waves, the river the shallow bar with breaking waves and the dock constructed of large stones covered with white foam seemed safe. Paddling back to the boat I see a turbulent I think is the mixing the fresh river water and the ocean until I get up close and it is a churning mass of 6 inch fish, the frigate birds are circling. Perhaps these fish will get close enough to the boat to get a photo of a frigate bird feeding. Karl reads his novel and I watch the frigate birds and boobies feed in the same bay. The frigate birds fly very high looking for very shallow schools of fish while the boobies fly lower and dive much more often. Then the frigte birds feed on a school the fish do no notice one of their family has been scooped out of the water. The school stays at
the surface, allowing a second and often a third bird feed from the same school of fish. Perhaps some of the interspecies angst is because when the boobies crash into a school the fish notice and dive deeper out of the reach of the frigate birds. No photographic evidence but perhaps there is a reason for the klepoparisitism.