No, not that kind of booby! These birds are more common than
seagulls in the Caribbean. The juveniles are all brown, but adults have a white
belly. They feed on fish and squid, which they catch by plunging into the ocean
from above. They’re pretty spunky, and we’ve seen them defending their catch
from frigate birds that apparently were too lazy to catch their own dinner. Brown
boobies build their nests on the ground, which unfortunately subjects them to
predation by non-native predators that have been introduced on many islands. This
adult booby was on a rock at Christmas Cove, near St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin
Islands. It didn’t care that I swam up and took pictures of it. It even seemed
to be posing!
No comments:
Post a Comment