ML541543451

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

This bird was sighted about 10:30 AM and was reported to park staff. It then disseminated to local birding community. It was a large (larger than an American Crow) predominantly brown bird with bright red feet and an elongated sturdy blue bill. See photos. My wife and I started our walk on 3/3/23 beginning at the Yates Mill Park parking lot about 9:30 AM and walking around the pond. In the past, we would have walked across the first bridge and then back to the second bridge but the first bridge was closed for repairs. so we had to walk around the whole pond. We walked around the pond and over to Mid Pines through Agroecology and up to the pecan grove and then back to Yates. It was approximately 10:30 when we noticed the bird but we did not see it land. We stopped at the far end of the first bridge and I took about 60 photos and then I walked quickly to the park office. I showed one of the park people one of my photos, and she sent it on to Adam Prince who identified it a a Red-footed Booby. Adam then sent out the alert to the birding community and i went to pick up Phil Doerr so he could see this bird. To clarify things, the bird was not present when we walked around the pond the first time but it was already present when we came back around the pond. I would say that the bird must have settled in between 10:00 and 10:25. There were people working on the bridge replacement when I first saw the bird, but they were working on the area of the bridge probably about 100 feet from the bird and it was not perturbed by their presence. According to Kent Fiala The bird flew off about 1:12, but I had aready left so I did not see it fly off.

Technical information

Lens

Tamron SP 150-600mm F5-6.3 Di VC USD G2

ISO

1000

Focal length

600 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/8.0

Shutter speed

1/800 sec

Dimensions

2344 pixels x 1548 pixels

Original file size

1.93 MB