PEEPS

Red-footed Booby - South Florida

On 4 May Roberto Torres reported a juvenile, ABA Code-4, Red-footed Booby (Sula sula) perched on Channel Marker 1, southeast of the Key Biscayne Lighthouse, Florida.

Red-footed Booby is one of the most abundant and widespread members of the Sulidae family yet the species is only casual in the ABA Area except for at the Dry Tortugas where at least one has been seen in 10 of the last 16 years (ABA Checklist, Seventh Edition).  Its food preference is flying-fish and squid which are caught by plunge-diving although flying-fish can also be captured in flight.  This booby can hunt during moonlit nights when squid are attracted to the surface.

Red-footed Boobies are polymorphic with a white, black-tailed white, "golden" white, brown, white-tailed brown, white-headed brown, and white-tailed brown morphs.  It is the only white-tailed booby although some of the morphs have brown tails. It is one of two booby species that nest in trees and it will also use trees for roosting.

Pantropical in distribution, long foraging flights makes plotting its movements difficult.  Juveniles are notorious for their long flights, some birds recorded over 100 miles from the nearest land.  Juveniles often leave on foraging journeys at first light, returning after dark (Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 1).

Bahama Mockingbird - Broward County, Florida

On 2 May an ABA Code-4 Bahama Mockingbird (Mimus gundlachii) was reported by Judd Pesold from Broward County, Florida, at the Hugh Taylor Birch State Park (fee) and seen by many birders.

For more information on Bahama Mockingbird please see the May 1 PEEPS post about this species.

European Golden-Plover - Newfoundland

On 2 May Dave Brown watched an ABA Code-4 European Golden-Plover (Pluvialis apricaria) flying southbound over Fermeuse, Newfoundland, Canada.

The closest breeding population of European Golden-Plover to the ABA Area is in east central Greenland. It winters from the British Isles and northwest Europe to North Africa and around the Mediterranean region to the Caspian Sea.  It was first recorded in the ABA Area in the spring of 1961 and in some years there are numerous birds present (350 in Newfoundland during spring 1988, AB 42:408).  It is essentially unknown in North America as a fall vagrant.

European Golden-Plover is the largest and bulkiest of the three golden-plovers with white, not gray, underwings. Two subspecies are usually recognized and the nominate subspecies has a population estimate of over 1.8 million birds in 1994, but with population declines predicted (Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 3).

Murphy's Petrel - Southern California Deepwater

A 30 April deepwater L. A. Audubon/Condor Express trip towards the San Juan Seamount served as a reminder to those of us living far from an ocean about reasons to participate in more pelagic adventures.  A single ABA Code-2 Laysan Albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis), four ABA Code-2 Xantus’s Murrelets (Synthliboramphus hypoleucus), an ABA Code-3 Murphy’s Petrel (Pterodroma ultima), along with other tantalizing pelagic species were seen. 

Murphy’s Petrel, usually encountered far offshore, is a short-billed, broad-necked, stiff-winged Pterodroma, rare on the West Coast from California north to British Colombia as far as 54° N. A pale patch at the base of primaries suggests jaegers.  In the ABA Area, it is usually seen in April and May.

Murphy’s Petrel is a tropical Pacific species known to breed on a few islands in the Pitcairn group, two islands in the Tuamotu group, islets in the Austral group, on Manui in the Gambier group, and a likely breeder on Cook Island (Albatrosses, Petrels &  Shearwaters of the World, Onley and Scofield). 

Bahama Mockingbird - Florida

On 1 May a bird fitting the description of the thrasher-like, ABA Code-4, Bahama Mockingbird (Mimus gundlachii) with tail spots and flank streaking was found by Carl and Larry King at a greenway at the Fort Lauderdale Airport.

Larger and more secretive than Northern Mockingbird with a similar repetitive song, Bahama Mockingbird is not known to mimic other species. It is a range-restricted, found on a few of the northern Cuban cays, the Bahamas, where it is expanding its range, and in a small area of Jamaica. Most reports of Bahama Mockingbird in the ABA Area come between early April to mid-June and mostly from southeast Florida although there is a photograph of a bird from the Dry Tortugas from 4 May ‘07.   Many reports have been submitted to the Florida Records Committee, but only about 8 records had been accepted as of 2008 (ABA Checklist, Seventh Edition, Pranty et al.).  There are also two reports of this species hybridizing with Northern Mockingbird (AB 46: 414, NAB 60: 368, 469).