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| Brown Noddy |
Yesterday, Roselvy and I went on a mini-pelagic of sorts, when we boarded a small, open fishing boat and ventured about 5 nautical miles out from Los Cóbanos, on the Pacific coast of El Salvador. Time and money prevented us from going much further, so we didn't see many truly pelagic birds. That said, we did pretty well on this short trip with close looks at a Brown Noddy, prolonged close looks at two immature Brown Boobies, and distant views of two other booby species. The bad news is that one of those distant boobies was too far to pin down to species, and must remain a 'large, black-and-white booby', i.e. either Masked or Nazca Booby. We sighted the bird at some distance, and pursued it, without ever getting much nearer. Our pursuit was curtailed by an approaching booby that turned out to be an adult Brown Booby.
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| Brown Noddy |
The third booby species, close enough for identification but too far for a photo, was Blue-footed Booby.
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| Brown Booby |
The two Brown Boobies, one first-year-old and one older immature, hung around a buoy, where they allowed reasonable close approach.
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| Brown Booby |
Black Tern was the most numerous avian species we encountered in these inshore waters. We encountered small groups of up to 20 individuals throughout the area.
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| Black Tern |
We also saw about 25 dolphins and 5 marine turtles out there. Once back on land, while walking back to the bus, we found a pair of Yellow-winged Caciques in a tree that also had a Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl calling. This cacique reaches the southeastern edge of its range in El Salvador, and in that country is only known from this locality.
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