Ohio Birds and Biodiversity

A juvenile brown booby on its favorite perch along Nimisila Reservoir near Akron/Jim McCormac

Wayward brown booby a delight for Ohio birders

Columbus Dispatch
September 20, 2020

Big bird news erupted Aug. 25 when word of a brown booby appeared on various birding forums.

Henry Trimpe, along with longtime birders Dwight and Ann Chasar, discovered the bird late that day at Nimisila Reservoir near Akron.

Brown boobies normally are strictly ocean-going birds. They breed on islands in tropical seas nearly worldwide. Seeing one inland on fresh water, especially as far north as Ohio, is unusual indeed.

Trimpe’s find quickly mobilized the binocular-toting crowd, and birders descended on the site the next morning. And there was the booby, in the very tree that it was seen in the previous evening.
This dead shoreline tree turned out to be the booby’s favored roost site, and, when it wasn’t fishing over the lake, it returned to perch on one the tree’s limbs. This habit made it simple to find and, over the next few days, hundreds of birders converged on the site.

Boobies are quite tame, and seemingly fearless of people. Thus, the fawning masses had no effect on it, although the optical-laden crowds drew the attention of other people.

Non-birder to birder: “What are you all looking at?”

Birder: “Brown booby.”

Hilarity ensues.

The funny name derives from the Spanish bobo, meaning dunce. Consulting Gary Meiter’s informative book, “Bird is the Word,” reveals this: “Sailors apparently named the birds because they were so tame and easily caught. Then the ship’s cook could prepare a big pot of booby stew.” Boobies are not dumb; rather they are extraordinarily tame, as many isolated island-dwelling animals tend to be.

I could not get to Nimisila Reservoir until Aug. 29, but I need not have worried — the bird was still present and seemingly at home in its unnatural freshwater haunts.

It wasn’t long before I was gazing upon it. The spectacular bird was up in the tree on its favorite branch, watching the world go by. As the best place for unobstructed views and photos was out in the lake, I waded in with tripod and camera.

Brown boobies are especially impressive: The 2½-pound bird is 1½ feet long, with a wingspan of nearly 5 feet.

Juveniles, like this bird, are brown throughout, though adults have bright-white bellies. Their large yellowish feet are webbed and ducklike, and the stout stiletto of a bill is designed for seizing fish.

I had hardly settled into my watery lookout when a young peregrine falcon shot in and took a swipe at the booby. The aggressive raptor then chased the seabird around the lake, occasionally forcing it to the water. I don’t think it was an effort to kill the booby; the falcon likely was exerting dominance over a completely foreign large bird, a notion reinforced when the falcon appropriated the booby’s favored perch.

After the falcon left, the booby commenced fishing, making plunge dives to grab small prey. These freshwater fish probably were easier to take than a favored oceanic food, flying fish.

Why would a brown booby be on a freshwater lake in northeast Ohio, 1,100 miles north of its normal saltwater purlieu? Hurricane Laura. This storm formed off the coast of Africa a few days before this booby appeared, and it swept across the Atlantic. It undoubtedly blew the young, inexperienced bird far to the north, giving Ohio its first record of an unexpected species.

Unfortunately, the booby never made it back to southern oceans. Sometime during the night of Sept. 4 or the next day’s early hours, a great horned owl apparently picked it off. The booby’s wings were found below the tree, and dismemberment is a calling card of these powerful owls.

During its stay, though, this booby enriched many lives and brought a taste of tropical oceans to Ohio.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

 

We - the birders of Ohio - were rocked by some unfortunate news this morning. I received an email around 8:30 am from Bob Lane, along with some photos taken moments before by Jeff Harvey. Jeff had gone to see the Brown Booby once more - the subject of my prior post, RIGHT HERE - and soon found this wing floating under the booby's favorite perch tree.

Alas, there's no mistaking that wing. Some predator had taken out what had become perhaps the most famous vagrant bird in the Midwest.

One of the juvenile Brown Booby's wings, dismembered. Who would have done this dastardly deed?

An obvious suspect, and some fingers have pointed in this direction, would be the juvenile Peregrine Falcon that I discussed in my previous post about this booby. However, I do not think the falcon is guilty. It is true that peregrines are primarily bird hunters. But they generally take much smaller prey than this booby, although the powerful falcons can kill ducks and smaller geese. But a Brown Booby weighs nearly a pound more than a peregrine, is nearly twice the length, and its wingspan is almost a foot and half longer. It'd be a tall order for a falcon to take out a booby and it probably wouldn't be worth the effort, especially in an area where more manageable prey abounds. Plus, I don't think a falcon would neatly sever the wings.

Also, the last report of the booby from yesterday came from around sunset or even a bit after, and the booby was settled into its favorite perch tree. While Peregrine Falcons are known to occasionally hunt at night, such behavior is not typical and the species is normally a diurnal hunter. While the booby kill could have been made around dawn this morning, before Jeff or other birders arrived, it seems likely that something got it last night.

I would guess Great Horned Owl. These powerful owls are at the top of the avian food chain in these parts, and are known for dismembering body parts of larger victims. Especially the head. I don't know if anyone has found or will find the rest of the booby carcass, but if it turns up it'll be interesting to see if it's headless or at least partly so. Great Horned Owls are known to take birds up to the size of mergansers, Short-eared Owl, and even - at least once - an Osprey. A booby roosting more or less in the open in a dead tree would seem to be a sitting duck for a hungry owl.

Scores of people came to see the celebrity booby during its ten days at Nimisila Reservoir. There's no telling if the wayward youngster would have made its way back to southern oceans, eventually. But that's a moot point now. Fortunately, in the bigger picture, Brown Booby is probably the most numerous of the world's half-dozen booby species, with a population likely numbering several hundred thousand. So, while many of us will lament the loss of the Ohio bird, the species will carry on. 

Birding by boat. A small flotilla of birders/photographers (the two groups are largely inseparable these days) watches what is easily the rarest bird in Ohio right now. On August 25, Henry Trimpe discovered a juvenile Brown Booby, Sula leucogaster, on Nimisila Reservoir in Summit County.

I finally made the journey up to see the bird yesterday. By then, the initial madness had worn off, and while dozens of people visited during my time, it wasn't the heavier crowds of days prior. The young booby seems quite at home here, and I figured it would linger. It's still present today.

Nimisila Reservoir and vicinity is a beautiful, watery region, and very much to the liking of "fish hawks", or Ospreys. I arrived at 7 am, and the first bird that I heard upon stepping from the vehicle was an Osprey. Their high-pitched piping whistles were a constant part of the soundscape, and perhaps six of the fish-eating raptors were present.

I saw lots of interesting birds during my five hours at Nimisila, but this beauty was what we had all come for: the young Brown Booby. The name, of course, provides constant fodder for witty repartee and interesting reactions from non-birders.

Non-birder: "So, what are you all looking at?"

Birder: "A Brown Booby"

Hilarity ensues.

The funny name arises from the Spanish bobo, which means "dunce". Sailors became very familiar with these birds early on, and thought them stupid due to their extraordinary tameness. Seabirds that nest on isolated islands and have little to no human contact often show little fear of people. But the misinterpretation of their intellect did give us the comical name. For more interesting information about boobies, and the sources and meanings of North American bird names, get a copy of Gary Meiter's book Bird is the Word. Go HERE to read more about this book, and HERE to get a copy.

Brown Boobies are an oceanic species, very rarely venturing inland and onto fresh water, especially this far north. That said, there is an Indiana record and several records from the eastern end of Lake Erie, so it's not altogether unexpected for this species to appear in Ohio.

While the numerous Osprey did not bother the booby in the slightest, this young Peregrine Falcon certainly did. Early in my visit, the falcon rocketed in and chased the booby off its favorite perch in a dead tree along the shoreline. It then proceeded to chase our rare visitor around the lake, forcing it onto the water and making several dives at it. I don't really think the falcon was attempting to kill the booby; it was probably just out for some fun. After thoroughly exerting its dominance, the Peregrine flew back to the booby's exact perch and sat for a while - that's where the above image was made.

While boobies may look somewhat clumsy and comical when grounded, they transform once airborne. Fast and powerful in flight, the Brown Booby specializes in catching flying fish when in its normal marine haunts. That takes extreme aerial prowess. The Nimisila vagrant seemed to be doing fine in capturing the lake's freshwater fish, and treated viewers to regular flights. Notice the heavy molt going on with this bird.

It's hard to say what the fate of this young booby will be. It likely was forced off the Gulf of Mexico and way to the north by Hurricane Laura, which formed and rapidly grew in intensity a few days prior to the bird's appearance here. Saltwater birds often don't fare well in the long term in freshwater habitats. With luck, the Brown Booby will make its way back south and onto the ocean. But whether it has any innate instinct as to where it should be remains unknown.

One thing is for certain. Many people will be keeping an eye on the bird, and it will be interesting to see how this booby situation plays out.