PLEASE! If you see any mistakes, I'm 100% sure that I have wrongly identified some birds.
So please let me know on my guestbook at the bottom of the page
So please let me know on my guestbook at the bottom of the page
The red-footed booby (Sula sula) is a large seabird of the booby family, Sulidae. Adults always have red feet, but the colour of the plumage varies. They are powerful and agile fliers, but they are clumsy in takeoffs and landings.
They are found widely in the tropics, and breed colonially in coastal regions, especially islands. The species faces few natural or man-made threats, although its population is declining; it is considered to be a least-concern species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Range map from www.oiseaux.net - Ornithological Portal Oiseaux.net
www.oiseaux.net
is one of those MUST visit pages if you're in to bird watching. You can find just about everything there
Range map of Red-footed booby - Click picture for full size map
By Cephas - BirdLife International. 2018. Sula sula.
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2018: e.T22696694A132589278. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T22696694A132589278.en.
Downloaded on 28 December 2018., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75393197
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2018: e.T22696694A132589278. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T22696694A132589278.en.
Downloaded on 28 December 2018., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75393197
Taxonomy
The first formal description of the red-footed booby was by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1766 in the twelfth edition of his Systema Naturae. He introduced the binomial name Pelecanus sula. The type locality is Barbados in the West Indies.
The present genus Sula was introduced by the French scientist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. The word Sula is Norwegian for a gannet.
There are three subspecies:
• S. s. sula (Linnaeus, 1766) – Caribbean and southwest Atlantic islands
• S. s. rubripes Gould, 1838 – tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans
• S. s. websteri Rothschild, 1898 – eastern central Pacific
Description
The red-footed booby is the smallest member of the booby and gannet family at about 70 cm in length and with a wingspan of up to 152 cm. The average weight of 490 adults from Christmas Island was 837 g. It has red legs, and its bill and throat pouch are coloured pink and blue.
This species has several morphs. In the white morph the plumage is mostly white (the head often tinged yellowish) and the flight feathers are black. The black-tailed white morph is similar, but with a black tail, and can easily be confused with the Nazca and masked boobies.
The brown morph is overall brown. The white-tailed brown morph is similar, but has a white belly, rump, and tail. The white-headed and white-tailed brown morph has a mostly white body, tail and head, and brown wings and back.
The morphs commonly breed together, but in most regions one or two morphs predominates; for example, at the Galápagos Islands, most belong to the brown morph, though the white morph also occurs.
The sexes are similar, and juveniles are brownish with darker wings, and pale pinkish legs, while chicks are covered in dense white down.
The species has been recorded three times from Sri Lanka.
In September 2016, a male red-footed booby was found washed up on a beach in East Sussex, UK, 5,000 miles from its nearest usual habitat. It was the first of its species ever recorded in the UK. The bird, later named Norman, was said by some[who?] to be exhausted and malnourished, though it flew onto the beach freely and was of normal weight when checked.
He was brought back to health before being transported by plane to an environmental center in the Cayman Islands in December 2016, where he subsequently died before ever being released into the wild.
In January 2017, a red-footed booby was sighted on the New Zealand mainland for the first time.
A red-footed booby was observed to be preyed upon by a large coconut crab on the Chagos Archipelago in 2016.
| Length: 70 cm |
|---|
| Wingspan: 152 cm |
| Weight: 850 à 1100 g |
| Longevity: 40 years |
| Distinctive Feature
• |
| Similar Species
• From opus at www.birdforum.net the forum for wild birds and birding. |
| Female / Male / Juvenile
• From opus at www.birdforum.net the forum for wild birds and birding. |
Identification
• Long tail
• Short neck
• Red feet
• Black flight feathers Primaries and, in most populations, outer secondaries
• Bluish bill with pink base
• Bluish skin around the eye
Brown Morph
• Wings darker than head, neck and underside of body
• Pink face
• Bluish bill
• Most have white tip to tail
• Many have dark brown necklace around upper breast
Brown with White tail
Fundamentally similar to the brown phase except that the entire tail, undertail coverts, and uppertail coverts are white.
White Morph
• Entirely white, except for flight feathers
• Distinctive black bar on distal underwing coverts
• Yellow wash on head and neck in some populations
Some Pacific populations have most of the tail black, while in the Caribbean and around Australia, the tail is white.
Juvenile
Birds are similar to the brown color phase, but lack the pink base to the bill. They start out with the bill all gray and feet that are dusky to orange; the bill then turn two-colored with dark tip and lighter inner part that may be fleshy.
The juvenile also have the head and neck lighter than the upperside of the wing, and compared with e.g., juvenile Brown Booby has darker underwing lacking the white areas seen in the latter.
BirdForum Opus contributors. (2021) Red-footed Booby. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 10 January 2021 from https://www.birdforum.net/wiki/Red-footed_Booby
Listen to the red-footed Booby
Sound from www.xeno-canto.org
Remarks from the Recordist
Recorded with my ZOOM H5 Handy Recorder. High pass filter applied with Audacity
Sound recording very poor, strong wind and sound from the waves
Sound recorded in Thai water. The pictures are taken on Cambodian water just before we crossed the border to Thai water.
Two birds and they only made sound when they dove for the same flying fish, when they dove alone they did not make any sound
Breeding
This species breeds on islands in most tropical oceans. When not breeding it spends most of the time at sea, and is therefore rarely seen away from breeding colonies. It nests in large colonies, laying one chalky blue egg in a stick nest, which is incubated by both adults for 44–46 days.
The nest is usually placed in a tree or bush, but rarely it may nest on the ground. It may be three months before the young first fly, and five months before they make extensive flights.
Red-footed booby pairs may remain together over several seasons. They perform elaborate greeting rituals, including harsh squawks and the male's display of his blue throat, also including short dances.
Diet
Red-footed boobies dive into the ocean at high speeds to catch prey. They mainly eat small fish or squid which gather in groups near the surface.
Conservation
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the red-footed booby as a species of least concern, though the population worldwide is decreasing. The warm phase (El Niño) of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation in 1982 and 1983 negatively impacted on breeding on Christmas Island as higher water temperatures reduced food supply.
Where usually 6000 pairs nested, 30 pairs and the around 60 pairs attempted breeding in 1982 and 1983 respectively.
Conservation status
Least Concern
(IUCN 3.1)
IUCN Red List
of Threatened Species. 2012. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sighted: (Date of first photo that I could use) 9 January 2021
Location: Gulf of Thailand- Lat N 10° 35,9' Long E 102° 41,9'
From: Birds of Cambodia
Sent: 21 January 2021 20:40
To: Aladdin
Cc: 'Philip'
Subject: First Red-footed Boobies for Cambodia!
Hi Aladdin,
Thank you for your detailed answer.
The Nov eBird placement is obviously in Thai waters, so their Cambo label is in error.
Therefore, we shall conclude that the first documented Cambodian record of RFBooby (not Bobby) is:
* 2 birds seen and photographed on 9 Jan 2021.
Please keep me posted on any sightings in Cambodian waters, as there has been no offshore survey and barely any observer ... since 2001!
Fred
Red-footed Booby / นกบู๊บบี้ตีนแดง - 9 January 2021 - Gulf of Thailand
Red-footed Booby / นกบู๊บบี้ตีนแดง - 9 January 2021 - Gulf of Thailand
Red-footed Booby / นกบู๊บบี้ตีนแดง - 9 January 2021 - Gulf of Thailand
Red-footed Booby / นกบู๊บบี้ตีนแดง - 9 January 2021 - Gulf of Thailand
Red-footed Booby / นกบู๊บบี้ตีนแดง - 9 January 2021 - Gulf of Thailand
Red-footed Booby / นกบู๊บบี้ตีนแดง - 9 January 2021 - Gulf of Thailand
Red-footed Booby / นกบู๊บบี้ตีนแดง - 9 January 2021 - Gulf of Thailand
PLEASE! If I have made any mistakes identifying any bird, PLEASE let me know on my guestbook
You are visitor no.
To www.aladdin.st since December 2005
Visitors from different countries since 26th of September 2011
