Saturday, February 14, 2009

Red footed Booby -day 3







The first photograph on this post was one of the toughest. It shows a Booby chasing a flying fish. This was fast action stuff, the entire sequence happening in seconds.
These birds are nimble enough to snare flying fish from the air and this was their only mode of hunting the entire 3 days that I spent with them. Boobies seemed to be well adapted for diving because of their long bills, lean and aerodynamic body. These birds have closeable nostrils, and long wings which they wrap around their bodies just before entering the water. Once they spot a fish,with their sharp eyes from above they just swoop onto the prey and immediately swallow it. I never saw any of these birds carry a fish in their beak,so photographing it was out of question.
They hunted twice a day early morning just after sunrise and evening about 2 hours prior sunset. Some even hunted at noon. Their hunting session lasted for about 2 hours and rest of the time they spent socialising on board mostly on the ships forward mast.

1 comment:

  1. Hi, I am really interested in your Feb photos of the boobies. Can you please give me more information? I have just witnessed the same thing off the NW coast of Aust. How high were the boobies diving from? Did they ever dive toward the sunny side of the boat or always away from the sun? About how far did you travel with the birds on board? Has anyone else witnessed this behaviour?

    Thanks

    Jen

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