Red-footed Booby

Table

Red-footed Booby – Accepted
1. 26 Aug 1975	ASY white	Southeast Farallon I. SF	1976-060	3	dark-tailed, Huber & Lewis (1980), Roberson (1980)
2. 12 Oct 1975	ASY white	Southeast Farallon I. SF	1976-061	3	white-tailed
3. 27 May 1985	ATY white	Morro Bay SLO	1985-076	12	Fig. 80, sketch in Langham (1991)
4. 14–17 Aug 1987	SY white	Pt. San Pedro SM	1987-224	13	ph., AB 42:128
and 20 Aug 1987		Golden Gate SF/MRN
and first 2 weeks Sep 1987		San Francisco SF	1988-039	13	ph.
5. 08 Oct 1987	HY	Monterey Bay MTY	1987-276	13	ph.
6. 11 Oct 1987	HY	~1.5 nmi. e Santa Barbara I. SBA	1987-262	13	ph.
7. 13–18 Oct 1987	SY white	Golden Gate MRN/SF	1987-275	13	ph., Pyle & McCaskie (1992)
8. 15 Nov 1987	HY	~7 nmi. w Santa Catalina I. LA	1987-361	13	Fig. 79, ph., AB 42:18
9. 18 Aug 1991	HY	Redondo Beach LA	1992-033	17	ph.
10. 01 Feb 1992	SY	~162 nmi. wsw San Nicolas I. VEN	1992-073	17	ph., AB 46:333
11. 13 Jun 1994	SY &	Daly City SM	1994-101	20	CAS 85273
12. 24 May 1996	SY	La Jolla SD	1996-079	22	video
13. 14 Oct 2000	ASY	~100 nmi. sw San Nicolas I. VEN	2001-024	26
14. 20 Jul 2002		La Jolla SD	2002-138	28	ph., Cole & McCaskie (2004)
15. 17–20 Oct 2003	SY	vic. Anacapa I. VEN	2003-160	29	on ship for 4 days
Red-footed Booby – Not accepted, identification not established
06 Sep 1979		Cibola NWR IMP	1980-017	6
03 Dec 1987		Pt. Pinos MTY	1987-360	14	ph.
13 Aug 1993		La Jolla SD	1994-031	19
10 Jul 1996		Monterey Bay SCZ	1994-103	22	ph.
31 Aug 1996		~12 nmi. ssw Santa Barbara SBA	1996-117	24	ph., Erickson & Hamilton (2001), accepted as Brown Booby
Red-footed Booby – Not submitted
25 Oct 1997		~63 nmi. sw Pt. Buchon SLO			FN 52:125

Figures

Figure 79. This first-fall, dark-morph Red-footed Booby was photographed on 15 November 1987 approximately 7 nautical miles west of Santa Catalina Island, Los Angeles County (1987-361; Arthur Howe).

Figure 80. California’s third record of the Red-footed Booby was furnished by a white-morph adult found on 27 May 1985 at Morro Bay, San Luis Obispo County; a Western Gull is in the lower left quadrant of this sketch for comparison. As a measure of how the Committee’s thinking about booby identification has evolved, this record received only one and two votes for acceptance during its first two reviews. On the record’s third circulation, however, it received the needed nine “accept” votes (1985-076; John Schmitt).

Red-footed Booby

RED-FOOTED BOOBY Sula sula (Linnaeus, 1766)

Accepted: 15 (75%)	Treated in Appendix H: yes
Not accepted: 5	CBRC review: all records
Not submitted/reviewed: 1	Color image: none

This widespread sulid breeds on numerous tropical islands, including Hawaii, with the Islas Revillagigedo holding the colonies closest to California. The species disperses casually to the Gulf of California but has not been recorded in the interior West. Farther east, the species occurs casually in the Dry Tortugas and in Gulf Stream waters near the southern tip of Florida, with scattered records north and west to the Upper Texas Coast and one from coastal South Carolina.

California’s first Red-footed Booby was a dark-tailed, white-morph adult photographed and examined in hand on 26 August 1975 at Southeast Farallon Island (Huber and Lewis 1980). The state’s second record, from the same location, refers to a white-morph adult with a white tail. Like both the Blue-footed and Brown Boobies, but not the Masked, the Red-footed Booby is primarily a post-breeding-season dispersant to California, with 14 of 15 records falling between 24 May and 15 November. Most of the state’s records involve dark-morph birds in waters off the central coast between the northern Channel Islands and Southeast Farallon Island; one-third came during a fall 1987 incursion (14 August–15 November). The first California specimen is a relatively small, dark bird typical of populations in the eastern Pacific; see also Appendix H.

[PINK-BACKED PELICAN Pelecanus rufescens Gmelin, 1789 – see hypothetical section]