Showy booby wows crowds in Ireland

A Brown Booby has stunned Irish birders since turning up at a seaside town in Co Wicklow yesterday [13 July 2020] – not just for being the country's first twitchable individual of this species, but also for its remarkably confident nature.

Shortly after being found, amazing footage of the tame sulid appeared on Twitter and left many in a state of shock – there, surrounded by beachgoers and dogs at Greystones beach, and being filmed on a camera phone, was a seemingly unperturbed adult Brown Booby. Given its behaviour, it was a welcome surprise that the bird seemed in rude health – it was seen fishing shortly after discovery, although was evidently a little tired and soon took off to rest on nearby rocks. Today [14 July], it was seen happily fishing just offshore once again in the morning, although its condition seemingly deteriorated throughout the afternoon and it was taken into care for a check-up early evening. 

So my 7 year old just filmed this on Greystones Beach 😱It’s a brown booby from the Caribbean think he was looking for a cuddle to warm him up 😂#birds #greystones #thinklocalbuylocal #Ireland #irishstudies pic.twitter.com/T6RKhbw1ja

— Little Lingua (@LinguaLittle) July 13, 2020

Brown booby fishing (and catching well from what I can see) in Greystones south beach. What a beauty! @cianbirder @BirdGuides @EricTheBirdman @BirdWatchIE pic.twitter.com/YHHuVQ5vxq

— Kenneth Duffy (@KennDuffy1) July 14, 2020

The previous two Irish records have been untwitchable: an immature photographed at sea from a trawler in Co Kerry waters on 13 and 14 August 2016 and, preceding that, a tideline corpse in Co Cork on 2 January of the same year.

Occurrences of Brown Booby are rapidly increasing in European waters, which appears to be a response to warming seas as a result of climate change, and further sightings are likely. This record follows hot on the heels of a bird photographed on a boat off the Isle of Wight on 9 May this year and may well be the same bird (both bare part colouration and plumage state appear similar). An amazing four were seen in British waters in summer 2019, which were the first to fourth national records. This was part of a wider influx of Brown Booby into western Europe last year, which also saw the species recorded in France for the first time.

Brown Booby breeds throughout the world's tropical oceans. In the Western Palearctic, breeding populations are found in Cape Verde and the Red Sea.

The Brown Booby soon moved from the beach to nearby rocks (Brian McCloskey).