PUBLISHED: May 15, 2018 at
5:41 am | UPDATED: May 15, 2018 at 5:43 am
DANA POINT — As Mark Tyson watched
a flock of seagulls chase a larger white bird, he knew the latter was something
he had never seen before. And, he thought, if he was right, the large seabird
was hundreds, if not thousands, of miles outside of its typical range.
On Sunday, May 13, Tyson, a
naturalist on Capt. Dave’s Dolphin and Whale Watching Safari, was out on a
whale-watch trip four miles off Strand Beach when he spotted a group of common
dolphins feeding on fish. Seagulls were hovering above hoping to share in some
of the spoils when Tyson, of San Juan Capistrano, caught a glimpse of the
unusual seabird.
“I realized I’d never seen that
type of bird before,” he said. “It was a masked booby, which is extremely rare
here. Every time the seagulls would dive down for a fish, you’d see the booby
on the water and he would immediately be chased with the fish he caught.”
A masked booby, with a body
typically three inches larger than that of a California seagull, is most
commonly found in tropical oceans. It’s territory is below the 30th parallel
near Baja and in the Southern Hemisphere.
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