The Black Noddy is a seabird with sooty dark plumage and a white cap. It gathers on islands to breed, and courting pairs repeatedly nod to one another.
Adults are sooty black with a white cap that grades into gray on the neck. The sexes look alike; juveniles have grayish feathers on the upper wings.
Black Noddies feed at sea and breed on islands. GPS tracking at Heron Island found much longer trips in 2022, when local food fell: mean distance was about 607 km, compared with about 72 km in 2019–2021. GPS locations were recorded every ten minutes to track foraging movements.
That year, tracked birds used the distant wooded Bushy Islet as an overnight roost. Chick mortality was higher and chick condition was poorer. Nesting islands, feeding waters and resting islands formed a connected habitat network for this colony.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
When food was scarce at Heron Island in 2022, Black Noddies travelled farther to forage and used a remote wooded island to roost. Chick mortality rose and condition declined that year. Protecting the links among nesting, feeding and resting places supports seabird habitat.