A Brown Booby (1cy) was found at Kynance Cove, Cornwall by local birder D. Collins on Monday 2nd September 2019. Incredibly, this bird appeared shortly after a 2cy bird disappeared from St. Ives after a short stay. Brown Booby is not on the British List, so with these two individuals and another possibly off the Kent coast recently, seems like a boom time for Boobies!
With the Brown Booby still present the next day, I arranged transport & set off early Wednesday morning. However, there was a problem with the car which meant I had to return it. Since there were no sightings most of Wednesday afternoon I didn't set off on Thursday morning. Sightings continued as normal on Thursday, which saw me heading south early Friday morning & arriving on site shortly after midday.
Worryingly, the weather had closed in, but cleared as I approached The Lizard. Although conditions were a bit damp & misty on site it was clear the bird wasn't on its favoured perch, half way up the small pyramid shaped rock to the extreme left of the group of rocks known as Gull Rock. There was a small group of birders high up & further round, giving them a view of the other side of Gull Rock where the Brown Booby was perched. Knowing the bird hadn't been seen for a while, I was pondering the possibility of moving vs. waiting for it to fly, consequently hadn't set up my 'scope. Suddenly, the shout went up from a guy from Northampton (didn't get a name) right next to me who I'd been chatting with, "There it is!". The Brown Booby sailed towards us passing closely as it disappeared below the outcrop we were standing on. Several birders swivelled round as one and watched the bird fishing in the bay for about half an hour.
The Brown Booby made several circuits of the bay flying quite close at times. On its return trip back to Gull Rock it again flew very close below us, appeared a couple of times briefly to the left from behind Gull Rock and disappeared round the back.
Video by Pete Hines
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