A rare, Red-footed Booby put on quite a show for more than 50 Port Townsend birders Aug. 4, with sightings at the Marine Science Center building on the pier at Fort Worden State Park. Much to their delight, the tropical seabird put on an encore in the same location early the next morning.

“The Red-footed Booby is a tropical seabird, breeding only on tropical islands such as the Galapagos,” said Steve Hampton, conservation chair and Christmas bird count chair of Admiralty Audubon Society. “This is the fourth record for Washington, but only the second one alive and the first that many people can come and see.”

Hampton said Colleen Farrell, a staff biologist for a Puget Sound Express whale watching cruise, first saw the bird on July 31 on a channel marker offshore of the Dungeness Spit lighthouse. On Aug 1, it was reported by the staff of the MV Rachel Carson, a UW research vessel, as it perched in their rigging while they were anchored between Protection Island and Diamond Point.

“It spent the night in their rigging and flew off the next morning as the vessel headed for Seattle,” Hampton said. “That morning, Aug. 2, I saw it flying around and feeding north of Point Wilson. The next morning, Aug. 3, a few birders saw it again in the same area. On Sunday, Aug 4, dozens of birders arrived to look for it. It was found perched on the roof of the Marine Science Center building among the gulls. It spent the whole day there, or on the spit of Point Hudson at low tide, or flying around and plunge diving between Point Wilson and Chetzemoka Park.”

Hampton said that more than 50 birders arrived from as far away as Vancouver, British Columbia and Olympia.

“It was a ‘lifer’ for many, and certainly the first time they’d seen one in the Pacific Northwest,” Hampton said. “Moreover, it offered close and confiding views, both perched and in flight. Many camera batteries were fully discharged.”

Port Hadlock-based, world-renowned seabird expert, Peter Harrison estimated the bird’s age at two or three.

“Plumages and soft parts coloration are the key to aging and identification,” Harrison said in an email exchange. “Your bird is a sub-adult, second year, perhaps entering its third year, and one of the so-called ‘intermediate morphs.’ More than a million pairs are scattered between 30 degrees north and 30 degrees south … The largest population is at the Galapagos Islands where I was just a month ago! I suspect that the origin of the Port Townsend bird is from one of the many colonies in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.”

Harrison has authored over a dozen books and is one of a handful of authors to both write and illustrate their bird books. Harrison’s first book – “Seabirds: An Identification Guide” published in 1983 – has been considered the bible of seabird identification for nearly 40 years.  Harrison is about to release a new, 600-page illustrated volume discussion 435 seabird species. 

Since the sighting, Hampton said he is tracking down details on the past three records of Red-footed Boobies visiting Washington.

“All have been since 2018, Hampton said. “Boobies — and there are about five or six types - have been spreading way beyond the tropics with climate change and warming sea temps. There are five records of Red-footed Booby for Alaska, all since 2015. And Nazca Booby (from the Galapagos) is now nearly annual in the Pacific Northwest, though the first U.S. record was in 2013. California went from zero to nearly 60 records of those since then.”