A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
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frigatebird
The frigatebird is a seabird with an enormous wingspan on a very light body, giving it the lowest wing loading of any bird. It cannot swim, cannot walk well, and cannot take off from water, and its feathers are not waterproof, so it takes everything from the surface on the wing or from other birds. Males inflate a scarlet throat pouch in display, holding it out for hours.
Etymology
The bird is named after the warship. A frigate was a fast, lightly built, highly maneuverable vessel, and sailors gave the name to a bird that behaved the same way: fast, agile, and inclined to take what other ships were carrying. The older English name was man-of-war bird, from the same comparison. The French called it frégate, and English took that.
Notes
Frigatebirds sleep in flight. Tracking work has recorded birds staying aloft for up to two months at a time without landing, sleeping in short bursts of a few seconds, sometimes with one hemisphere of the brain at a time, while circling upward inside cumulus clouds to gain altitude and then gliding on.