Great frigatebirds will also hunt seabird chicks at their breeding colonies, taking mostly the chicks of sooty terns, spectacled terns, brown noddies, black noddies and even from other great frigatebirds. They are often seen foraging in large, mixed-species flocks, especially flocking with sooty terns and wedge-tailed shearwaters. Like all frigatebirds they will not alight on the water surface and are usually incapable of taking off should they accidentally do so. Great frigatebirds will make use of schools of predatory tuna or pods of dolphins that push schooling fish to the surface. Prey is snatched while in flight, either from just below the surface or from the air in the case of flying fish flushed from the water. Flying fish from the family Exocoetidae are the most common item in the diet of the great frigatebird other fish species and squid may be eaten as well. The great frigatebird forages in pelagic waters within 80 km (50 mi) of the breeding colony or roosting areas. Despite their extended range, birds also exhibit philopatry, breeding in their natal colony even if they travel to other colonies. One male great frigatebird relocated from Europa Island in the Mozambique Channel to the Maldives 4400 km away for four months, where it fed on rich fishing grounds. Birds marked with wing tags on Tern Island in the French Frigate Shoals were found to regularly travel to Johnston Atoll (873 km), one was reported in Quezon City in the Philippines. Great frigatebirds undertake regular migrations across their range, both regular trips and more infrequent widespread dispersals. The Atlantic population, restricted to Trindade and Martin Vaz, is very small. Colonies are also found on numerous Indian Ocean islands including Aldabra, Christmas Island, the Maldives and Mauritius. In the Central and South Pacific, colonies are found on most islands groups from Wake Island to the Galapagos to New Caledonia with a few pairs nesting on Australian possessions in the Coral Sea. Hawaii is the northernmost extent of their range in the Pacific Ocean, with around 10,000 pairs nesting mostly in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The great frigatebird has a wide distribution throughout the world's tropical seas. Neotropical, Palearctic, Nearctic, Oceanian, Australasian, Indomalayan, Afrotropical
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