Brown Booby

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

A lifer for me, and a dream come true.
An immature Brown Booby Sula leucogaster. This bird is an occasional non-breeding visitor that has been recorded only from a couple of locations on the west coast of India. Photographed this bird recently during a dolphin survey off Malvan, Maharshtra. We were about 2 km from shore at this point.
This is far from an everyday sighting, and what made it much more special was that the bird stayed put and offered a huge number of shots. :)

Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 70-300mm IS USM (borrowed)
SS 1/800
Av 7.1
ISO 100
Very slight crop (about 5%) from below.
Shot hand held from a moving boat.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Fantastic Abhishek....This wud be a lifer for most indians unless he has sighted it else where, there no reliable records from indian waters in the recent past of which i know. This bird is confusingly similar to the juv masked booby (Sula dactylatra) but this one does look like brown booby from the pics on the net. would like to share this image with someone I know if you don't mind.

Many thanks for sharing

Roopak

[Bibhav Behera]

Brilliant. I agree with Roopak that few people would have sighted this in India. Very nicely done. Congratulations!

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Thanks.
Roopak, the juvenile masked booby has a distinct white collar if I remember correctly. Do feel free to share the image.

An interesting thing about this bird is that the bill lacks nostrils, owing the the bird's habit of diving frequently and relatively deep. The nostrils have been closed up in the course of evolution, and the bird breathes air by opening the gape slightly.

[Prasad Dingankar]

Thanks for sharing.... this is first timer for me... not even knowing about such bird

[Mrudul Godbole]

Great sighting. Good to know it posed for you :). Thanks for sharing the information. Look forward to more.

[Kaustuv Chatterjee]

Congrats on being able to see this and such an excellent sighting....liked the description of evolution of the blocked up nostrils...thanks for sharing