Brown Booby in Southwestern Virginia, October 5, 2022

On my last trip to the VA coast in February 2022 one of my long-shot targets was Brown Booby.  There had been a few sightings of one or more Brown Booby leading up to my trip, but sightings were scattered on the coast and none were reliable.  Little did I know that my best chance for this vagrant in VA would come in the mountains in the southwestern corner of the state. 

On September 23 I checked my eBird VA Needs Alert and along with reports of several shorebirds and passerines I needed was a report of a Brown Booby.  I just assumed it was on the coast, but was shocked to see it was in Smyth County – one of the VA counties in the southwestern portion of the state where I birded a week earlier in search of migrant passerines.  Certainly notable, but since it was nearly a 3-hour drive away, I didn’t think too much of it. 

But as the days passed the reports continued on a daily basis.  And looking ahead, we were planning a vacation to visit family in the Mid-Atlantic states starting October 5.  Our route would take us up I-81 within 15 minutes of the reservoir where the Booby was residing.  Certainly worth a short side trip, but would the bird stay around that long?

It was still being reported daily as our trip neared.  So I started compiling information on the sightings to prepare for my search.  The bird was being seen at a large lake at Hungry Mother State Park.  Several sightings were from the dam, and most others were near the beach often loosely associating with a flock of Canada Geese.  But it seemed like the bird might well be frequenting all parts of the lake so it might take some searching, and luck, to find it.  I also reached out to Allen Boynton, the birder I birded with in the area just a couple weeks earlier.  Although he had already seen the bird, he agreed to meet me there to try to get some better photographs.  Our plan was set.

We pulled into the parking area for the dam at the state park at about 11:30 and Allen was there waiting for us.  We quickly walked to the top of the earthen dam and started our scan of that portion of the reservoir.  Unfortunately, despite lots of scans, the bird was nowhere in sight.  The beach area wasn’t visible from the dam, so Allen suggested that I go up to the beach and he would stay at the dam looking for it there. 

A few minutes later we pulled into the beach parking lot and were greeted with this nice scenic shot.

Then almost instantly I spotted the Brown Booby in flight just off the beach.  I texted Allen about the sighting, and then went back to looking for the Booby.  After a while I re-found it flying over the reservoir, and even watched it plunge dive for food.  Much like its Gannet cousins on the coast.  Very neat!  Eventually it flew to a low perch across from the beach where it sat for the rest of my stay.  I got this heavily cropped phonescoped photo of the Booby perched just a foot off the water on the opposite side.

With a long trip still ahead of us, my wife and I stayed with the bird just a few more minutes, then bid farewell to Allen and got back on the road.  Nothing better than a cooperative super-rarity fitting so nicely into the family plans.

Brown Booby was #272 for my VA state list, and the 6th state where I’ve seen this species.  My statebird map is inserted below – I’ve seen it in FL which is the only state where it is regularly seen from shore (shaded in blue).  Plus I’ve now seen it as a rarity (the brown-shaded states) in 5 others.  As my map shows, Brown Booby’s are certainly prone to vagrancy.