Hard to believe how fast time passes by. This weekend is the two year anniversary of the presence of Ohio’s only ever Brown Booby. To all the birders that had the opportunity to view the juvenile Nimisila Brown Booby, I hope you realize how lucky you were. Most birding enthusiasts travel by boat, sixty miles west of Key West, Florida to The Dry Tortugas National Park to record Brown Booby on their “LIFELIST”. By the way the crow flies from Nimisila, Summit County, it is about 1150 miles straight south to the Dry Tortugas. How the Nimisila bird got here will probably always be a mystery. Most Boobies that arrive at not some common locations show up days ahead of a  tropical storm/hurricane. Could Hurricane Laura have assisted our celebrity visitor? And by the way, the origin of this first for Ohio record booby would probably have been on a tropical desolate island, somewhere in The Caribbean. I hope you had the thrill of seeing this bird skimming the surface of the water, or acrobatically diving while feeding, with its wingspan being almost double the length of its body. This was probably a once in a lifetime sighting for Ohio! The celebrity was first detected the evening of August 25th, 2020. The following day, throngs of birders came to view it! The Booby was present for eleven days. Unfortunately on the morning of September 4th, it’s remains were found on the ground by it’s evening roost tree. In all probability an avian predator, most likely a Great Horned Owl, was the evil culprit. A Booby alone in a wooded area, not it’s normal habitat, with a nighttime routine, would become quite vulnerable. The Booby had an interesting visit, being harassed daily by birders and photographers, plus a juvenile Peregrine Falcon that was relentlessly toying with it, appearing to be more at play than in an effort to do harm. What a way to end the stay of Ohio’s first, and only, record Brown Booby . Celebrate this birding memory.

Bob Lane / Mahoning County




______________________________________________________________________



Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.

Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php.

Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.





You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:

listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS

Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]