Brown Booby Bogie conquered at last!

There are increasingly (and understandably) moments when I feel a sense of compulsion in my birding career as I seek to add to my life list (proving harder by the day) and mop up species that I have previously dipped on. Today was such an occasion. In fact, I was off to connect, finally, with a bird that had hitherto brought me nothing but misery. I remember quite vividly what happened… Having carted my family down to Cornwall some years ago so that I could join a string of unusually unproductive pelagics (and abandoning my wife and kids at some random holiday home), I hoped to salvage the dire birding situation on the sea by connecting with a first for Britain that had coincidentally just arrived on the Cornish mainland. To cut a long story short, I failed miserably. I think I tried at least three times to track the thing down, but arriving just a minute late on the third day just about finished me off. Furious, I drove the 8 hours back home – with my family – barely uttering a word. It was a painful experience.

So, that sense of compulsion when another bird of its kind appeared on the east coast – just 2 hours away, this time – was intense. You can, however, also imagine my anguish when, on arriving at the site in question at 7am (having hardly slept), there was now, just when I turn up, no sign of the rarity in question. My heart sank. But this feeling was short-lived: as I returned to my car, another birder came hurtling down the single-track road in his own vehicle, flung his door open and announced the bird was in fact showing well but further along the peninsula. I jumped into my car and followed him down to the site in question, grabbed my bins and at last, at long last, clapped eyes on my first ever British Brown Booby!

These first 10 minutes set the tone for the rest of the day. Having seen this adult female perched beautifully on a wooden platform in full view of all and sundry, I grabbed my other optics, dashed down to the lower path where others had gathered, set up my tripod and switched on my camera only to discover that the bird had taken off and was now heading out to sea! I did get some record shots, thank goodness, but this was annoying to say the least. Anyway, after lots of pacing about, dashing here and there, catching glimpses of the thing drifting past the headland, it did eventually appear to settle, firstly on a buoy, albeit some way off. Then, having done the rounds of the local tankers and rocky outcrops, it finally returned to its favourite perch, back on the wooden platform, and at last I could relax and properly enjoy watching and photographing this ultra-mega. Sure, perhaps not the most attractive of rarities, but one that drew me in and absorbed my attention for the next three hours or so. And yes, eventually I did get some decent shots – of it preening, flapping, flying and fishing. Even the decidedly industrial backdrop somehow added to the ambiance as well as interest to some of my photos. All in all, it was more than satisfying; I also felt an immense sense of relief!

These are probably my favourites: