A mini-pelagic

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.

Brown Noddy

The third booby species, close enough for identification but too far for a photo, was Blue-footed Booby.

Brown Booby

The two Brown Boobies, one first-year-old and one older immature, hung around a buoy, where they allowed reasonable close approach.

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.

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. 

Stormy weather

A couple of days ago, it started raining here in Tortuguero, on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, and it hasn't stopped since. The rain has been heavy at times, which even caused a power outage for most of the morning today.

As the rain was letting up a bit towards midday, I thought I'd venture out on the beach to see what's doing.

Immediately I realized that the birding there was as fabulous as it was difficult. Strong winds, darkness from heavy overcast skies combined with the rain made for very poor visibility. But there was a good number of birds out there, especially Laughing Gull was abundant. There was a constant stream of laughers heading southeast parallel to the beach, and I think I saw nearly a thousand individuals in about an hour's time.

Black Noddy

Other birds seen were two jaeger spp., a Common Tern, a couple of sulids, and this bird, a Black Noddy. Unlike the others, this is a true pelagic and not normally seen from the beach here.

The sulids were likely Brown Boobies, a species that I see regularly off the beach here, even in calm weather. Although I wouldn't rule out Red-footed Booby. Last Sunday, someone brought in a sickly booby, which died later that day. Despite its yellow legs and feet, certain measurements (specifically tarsus and tail) and plumage characters (uniform dark plumage, light tip to dark tail) pointed in the direction of the locally much rarer, because much more pelagic, Red-footed Booby.

Brown Booby

This bird, however, I believe is a juvenile Brown Booby.