Bird
Bird
Brown Booby
Sula leucogaster
The Brown Booby is a large, powerful seabird recorded off Tobago, plunge-diving from height into offshore waters after fish, and closely related to the boobies and gannets found on rocky sea cliffs and offshore islands worldwide.
The Brown Booby is a large, powerful seabird recorded off Tobago, plunge-diving from height into offshore waters after fish, and closely related to the boobies and gannets found on rocky sea cliffs and offshore islands worldwide.
Identification
A large seabird around 64 to 74 cm long, with a sharply demarcated dark chocolate-brown head, breast, and upperparts contrasting with a clean white belly and underwing coverts, a pattern visible at considerable distance. The bill is heavy, conical, and pale yellow to greyish, and the feet are yellow. Flight combines strong, direct wingbeats with long glides low over the water.
Ecology
The Brown Booby hunts by plunge-diving from height into the sea, sometimes from as high as 20 metres, to catch fish and squid near the surface, often foraging in loose groups and taking advantage of fish driven to the surface by predatory tuna or dolphins below. It breeds colonially on offshore islands, rocky islets, and cliffs, nesting on bare ground or rock, and disperses over open water outside the breeding season.
Status in T&T
Recorded off Tobago and its offshore islets, where suitable nesting and roosting habitat on rocky islands supports at least occasional presence; it is less numerous and less consistently recorded around Trinidad, where extensive rocky offshore nesting habitat is scarcer. It is not threatened globally. It is protected under the Conservation of Wildlife Act and is not a game species.
Threats
- Disturbance of offshore breeding colonies
- Marine plastic and pollution affecting prey availability
