PUBLISHED: November 28, 2017
at 6:16 am | UPDATED: November 28, 2017 at 6:21 am
At Dana Point on Monday, Robin
Lowe was on a mission — to get a glimpse of a rare bird said to be hanging out
near local waters far from its home on the Galapagos Islands.
“I’m still smiling ear to ear,”
she said after seeing the Nazca Booby casually hanging out with pelicans on a
jetty. “To be able to see it today, it’s hard to grasp the words. I’m just so
thrilled to be able to see this. It’s once in a lifetime. Here it was in our
backyard, in the Dana Point harbor.”
Bird-watching enthusiasts flocked
to the Orange County harbor clutching binoculars and long lenses hoping to see
the Nazca Booby.
The bird was spotted in Newport
Beach two weeks ago, then by a deckhand on the fishing boat Sum Fun on Sunday,
and again Monday on the rock jetty where boaters enter and exit the harbor,
said Donna Kalez, manager of Dana Wharf Whale Watching.
“I guess it’s super-duper rare,”
said Kalez, noting that whale-watching was slow Monday, but bird enthusiasts
got a treat. “People are really excited about this bird.”
The Nazca Booby breeds
primarily on the Galapagos and Malpelo archipelagos but on occasion can be
found offshore from mainland South America, with small breeding populations
along the Ecuadorian and Peruvian coasts as well as in the Pacific Coast of
Central America, according to The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Lowe, a naturalist with the
American Cetacean Society, said she showed a picture to the Dana Wharf Whale
Watching deckhands, and one immediately spotted the bird just as they were
leaving the harbor.
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