I Love Boobies

Many years ago (before I was a birder) Karen and I were visiting Providence, Rhode Island, a quaint tourist town on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.  We were in a shop and one of the employees was wearing one of those brightly-colored plastic wrist bands and it had, “I Love Boobies” printed on it.  I thought that it was rather inappropriate to refer to that part of a woman’s body using such a sophomoric term and told him so.  He sighed, and then patiently explained to me that he was wearing the wrist band in support a small colony of Brown Boobies living on the coast.  I was embarrassed, to say the least, but through this interaction I had my first introduction to the Booby family of birds.  Since then I’ve seen many different species of Boobies – Red-footed, Blue-footed, Nazca, and Brown Booby.

I related this story as an introduction today’s featured U.S. Virgin Island bird, the Brown Booby.  As I shared last week we had rented a condo with a million-dollar view overlooking a small bay on the north side of St. Thomas, USVI.  Each morning I would look out to see Brown Pelicans, Brown Boobies, and Royal Terns circling around the bay and then suddenly dive into the water after a fish.  Of course I had to try capturing these attempts and came home with several hundred shots of diving birds.  Today I’ll limit myself to the Brown Boobies.

The early morning light was bright and when it bounced off of the contrasting brown/white body of the booby the white underparts were often overexposed.  The only we I could compensate for this was by reducing the Highlights slider in Lightroom all the way down to zero.

In this first set you can see the Brown Booby approaching its prey, then its beak enters the water, followed by the entire head.

When a Brown Booby flew just above the surface one of its wings would often graze the water.

Sometimes the booby would move a short distance across the bay and to do so it would flap once or twice while it hopped on the water.

Here’s a final shot of a Brown Booby just as its beak enters the water – with a bit of a reflection, too!

Without fear of being accused of anything other than being a birder, I can also proudly proclaim, “I love Boobies.”

Karen and I have had the opportunity to travel to many interesting places in search of birds.  If you would like read about more of our Bird Tours CLICK HERE.

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