Rare...Vagrant...Booby by any other name

ADDENDUM [saturday morning - May 3, 2014] ---This post was written yesterday morning and scheduled to publish at noon.  Since the preparation of this narrative, Bud and I chartered a boat late yesterday afternoon to have them take us out on the bay to get a closer view...they were still there!!! [see close up photos, below]

Remember back around Christmas of last year when I told y'all about the cops pulling us over near the Shipping Channel thinking that since we were using binoculars to scan the tankers docked; thinking that we may have been terrorists? Remember? Well, at the time it was reported that a sea loving bird was spotted perched on the barge near all the tankers....for several days. Bud and I never did find it. But we made the channel guards nervous.

During this past week, while the American Birding Association held their national convention here in our city along the seawall on Shoreline Blvd for the entire week, lo and behold another rare/vagrant bird of the same species showed up to show off for the convention attendees...perched on the breakwater. Now, if you don't know what breakwater is, I'll give you an idea...we live on the coast and are always within a threat of strong force hurricanes during the 6 months from June to November. The breakwater is nothing but stacks and stacks of huge boulders placed strategically from the bottom of the sea and jutting up out of the water several feet to break the high waves created by a hurricane and if luck holds out, that breakwater will 'break the water' and hopefully save the streets, yachts, seawall, etc. from catastrophic damage.

Okay, so now you know what that's all about. On ABA's website for Texas and Texas's bird sightings, one evening about 7 pm, I read that a brown booby had been spotted on marker #2 out in the bay...just in front of the convention hotel. Bud and I dropped everything and hopped in the car and drove to the hotel front and searched with our binoculars. Not only did we find ONE booby, but by that time there were TWO brown boobies. I think one was a juvenile. But the darkness of the evening was pounding down on us and I didn't take but one very dark, blurry photo...

...at least we spotted them...at last!!

Rarely are these birds seen on land. They're mainly sea lovers, living and feeding in the oceans. And more rarely, they are spotted in Texas along the coastal borders of the Gulf. When seen here in our area, they're considered vagrant. Understandable...

range map courtesy of google search

...the next day, during the convention, they were once again spotted in the same perch!! I rushed out in the sunlight...even tho the images are still not professional quality, and the birds were a bit too far from my zoom range [over 1/4 mile away from where we stood], I was able to record them here with a little more detailing and color than the 1st night.

BROWN BOOBY [adult & juvenile?]
photos taken: Corpus Christi Bay - downtown Corpus Christi, Texas


ADDENDUM - - I couldn't take not having a closer look at these water birds.  The two have been frequenting the bay for nearly two weeks now, off and on.  Yesterday afternoon, after birding at a nearby park, we drove down to the seawall and breakwater only to see they were at the same marker as last week!  I was itching to get out on the water somehow, and asked around, to find someone to take us out there to photograph up close and personal.  The charter pilot did a wonderful job of it.  After taking a slow speed to not startle them off, he circled around the boobies several different angles and allowed me to get pictures - close enough for my zoom to capture in more detail without scaring them off!!!  Trust me, I took nearly 100 photos yesterday in short of an hour's time out on the water, [and I'm MORE than happy to report the sea was calm!!] but will share just a few that I watermarked here...added photos from yesterday's boat excursion:






TRIVIA:
Like pelicans, the Brown Booby's [and all boobies] feet are "totipalmate," having webbing connecting all four toes.
The brown booby is normally dark brown with cream colored belly, yellow feet, light blue beak. The juvenile is also brown to spotted gray with dappled cream/brown bellies.

Now, share your birding experiences: