ON THE WILD SIDE Pirates with a sickening tactic

Mostly black with a huge hooked beak, deeply forked tail, 7.5ft wingspan and (on males) a huge red throat pouch that can be inflated like a balloon, the birds are certainly a sight to behold.

They have the largest wing-to-body ratio of any bird, which is helpful as they love to fly. They use the thermal updrafts from hot seas to glide, rarely having to flap their wings at all.

They can fly for hundreds of miles, using their pointy tails to steer. Frigatebirds routinely spend around two weeks in the air looking for food. They are one of only two species

– the other being the swift – who sleep in the air. One bird was recorded flying for a full two months before landing. Their long-ranging behaviour means that once in a while they fly well away from home and, especially after a hurricane, can show up anywhere. They are even spotted in Britain, although very rarely. Most claims of flying dinosaurs being spotted turn out to be lost frigatebirds.

These monsters of the sky are very long-lived, easily reaching 40 years or more. They only get their adult feathers and start to look for a mate when they are around 10 years old. Males attract mates by inflating the pouch on their neck into a huge balloon and clapping their beaks together to make a drum-like echo. Females only raise a single egg every two years and spend the longest time parenting of any bird. The chicks take six months to leave the nest and the mothers continue to look after them for a whole year after that. Frigatebirds are not everyone’s favourites as they do like to eat baby turtles, but they are limited in what they can scoff. They do not produce enough oil to waterproof their feathers, and their strange bodies mean that if they land on a flat surface they may not be able to take off without something to jump from. So landing in the sea or on a beach to eat could literally spell death for them.

So what can you eat when you can’t land? Only things on the surface of the water, like flying fish or some squid species. They take full advantage of shoals chased to the surface by hunting

sharks and whales, and will They earned the nickname pirate bird because of their habit of stealing from every other fishing bird they can.

They are known to routinely harass and attack other seabirds until they throw up the fish they have eaten, giving them a disgusting free meal. Some frigatebirds can get nearly half of their food using such piracy. TOM via email

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I’M going to move away from the UK to introduce you to the crazy frigatebird. Part pirate and part dinosaur, it’s also known as the man-o-war bird.This monster lives in the hot seas all around the equator… and it has some truly stomachchurning habits. steal from fishermen. But they do have one more trick… DRAGONS: Frigatebirds get mistaken for monsters. Left, juvenile at nest

LARGER water birds should be getting to know their mates better by now. If you are lucky, you might spot courtship displays from the likes of the grey heron and the great crested grebe.

A FRIEND tried to annoy me with his corny bird puns.I thought: “Toucan play at that game.” WHICH musical instrument would you find in a bathroom?A tuba toothpaste. I’VE got a mate who’s in love with two school bags – he’s bisatchel! WHY did the teddy say he didn’t want any pudding?Because he was already stuffed. WHY did the tree visit the dentist?It needed some root canal work doing. WHY do the French eat snails?Because they don’t like fast food.