There are lots of birds that we see in Maine with names that contain words like “northern” as in northern waterthrush or “eastern” as in eastern phoebe. There are a few that we see here in winter with the word “snow” in the name—snow bunting and snowy owl for example. Birds with names like these seem to make sense here.

But how about a bird with the word “tropic” in its name?

Maine is many things to many people but the closest anyone here gets to describing Maine as tropical is when an old-timer with tongue in cheek describes a cold, nasty day as being “balmy.”

Despite what we think we know about Maine and its weather, a most tropical of birds, a red-billed tropicbird, has made the Maine coast its summer home for the last 11 years.

All three species of tropicbirds are normally, as their name implies, birds of the hot equatorial regions of the world. The size of a small gull, they are brilliant white birds with some dark markings. Red-billed tropicbirds have thick red bills, black wingtips, and black scalloping on the back and inner wings. Recent genetic work has shown that the tropicbirds are an ancient lineage of birds with no close relatives. They are birds of the sea and are remarkable flyers often seen flying high over the ocean or behind ships. Tropicbirds feed on fish, typically diving into the upper layers of the water to catch them. They lay their single egg in a burrow or ledge on tropical islands. The closest red-billed tropicbird nesting islands are in the Caribbean in Puerto Rico, over 1500 miles to our south. The most recent population estimates we have seen for the species put the number of breeding birds in the Caribbean at about 1800 pairs.

A red-billed tropicbird was spotted at Seal Island (the one about seven miles from Matinicus) and several other islands in the Gulf of Maine in 2005. What is thought to be the same bird settled on Matinicus Rock as its summer roosting site in 2006 where it could be found in summer until 2008. After that the bird moved to Seal Island and has spent summers there since. It was in residence there this year until a few weeks ago and has been giving a thrill to the birders who have made the boat trip out to see it.

Why this tropical seabird has made the coast of Maine its summer home for the last eleven year is a mystery. A few other tropicbirds have caused stirs in the birding world before. A red-billed tropicbird hung around a headland on Martha’s Vineyard for a few years back in the 1980’s. And a white-tailed tropicbird tried to interact with remote controlled hang gliders for over a month at a southern California headland back in 1964.

Tropicbirds are long-lived animals and Maine’s summer resident tropicbird seems to find enough food while it is here. Will it one day find a mate and start a population? Who knows? But you can bet that birders will be searching the waters around Seal Island for a glimpse of this magnificent bird next year.

Jeffrey V. Wells, Ph.D., is a Fellow of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Dr. Wells is one of the nation's leading bird experts and conservation biologists and author of the “Birder’s Conservation Handbook.” His grandfather, the late John Chase, was a columnist for the Boothbay Register for many years. Allison Childs Wells, formerly of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is a senior director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, a nonprofit membership organization working statewide to protect the nature of Maine. Both are widely published natural history writers and are the authors of the book, “Maine’s Favorite Birds.”