One of the sea birds that I work with regularly is Red-tailed Tropicbird. It lives all of it's life at sea except to come ashore to breed and lay eggs. I monitor a plot that contains 5 Tropicbird nests at his time and will have many more before I leave Midway. I note the date the nest was found and tip the bird to check for an egg and whether it is banded or not. If it is not banded we band the bird and replace it on the nest. Sometimes this is easier in theory than in practice. Once we know the band number of any adult we put a drop of nail polish on it's head so we know it is banded and don't need to disturb it again. As the chicks get older we we also band them. Each of these nests will be monitored through their whole nesting cycle and at the end of the season a percentage of nesting success can be generated by using the figures for failed and successful nests. Here are pictures of nesting Red-tailed Tropicbirds sitting on their nests in the rubble of an old concrete wall.
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