At midnight on Sunday, 31 August, 2025, Richard Baxter emailed me to say that Andrew Robinson had reported a Red-billed Tropicbird on Christmas Island. I couldn't sleep well that night and got up early to send someone an email. Thus I received Richard's email in the wee small hours of Monday 1 September. I was scheduled to go birding at Chiltern that week, and I had an Eaglehawk Neck pelagic booked for Sunday, 14 September. I'd been looking forward to both trips and had lists of birds I hoped to see. They were quite immaterial now. Now, all that mattered was getting to Christmas Island as quickly as possible. To the best of my knowledge, I've never before been on the same land mass at the same time as a Red-billed Tropicbird. The first time I ever heard of a Red-billed Tropicbird being in Australia was in 2010, when one turned up on Lord Howe Island. I was most impressed (not to say envious!) when Rohan Clarke hopped on a plane and twitched it. Somehow, the bird that turned up on Ashmore Reef in November 2014 passed me by.
Some years later, a bird turned up on Christmas Island, but I believe it had left by the time I arrived in November. For the last five or so years, a Red-billed Tropicbird has turned up on Christmas Island every year. It arrives around late August/early September, visits for about a month, then disappears. It never hangs around to greet me when I arrive in November. Last year, my patience ran out and I determined that if the bird turned up this year, I'd twitch it. So it was that on Friday, 5 September, 2025, I arrived on Christmas Island. Lisa Preston, who runs Indian Ocean Experiences, arranged accommodation for me and put me in touch with Andrew Robinson, the man who'd found the bird this year. I met Andy on Saturday morning. We drove to Tai Jin House, where he'd seen the bird, and sat down to wait. We didn't have many hours to fill. At 10.20, the bird appeared! Thank you, Andy! Andy took all the photos on this page. Thank you again, Andy. The bird put on a wonderful display for us, wheeling and calling in front of us for about 15 minutes. Then it disappeared. I remained on Christmas Island until my flight home the following Friday, but I did not see the bird again. I believe there were a handful of other sightings during the week, but not by me. I went to Tai Jin House several times and scanned Flying Fish Cove diligently, but I was not able to wish the bird back into existence. Andy first saw the bird at about 4 in the afternoon. Lisa saw it one morning at 11. Other people were lucky enough to add it to their lists. But I could not determine any pattern in its appearances. It seemed to me to be pot luck whether you saw it at all.
So, a big THANK YOU to Richard and Lisa and Andy. A successful twitch always leaves me feeling good, and, as the twitches get harder and harder to achieve, the good feeling just gets better and better.
