Exotic booby: rare Hunter sighting sends birdwatchers into a flap

Australia's birds have some fine boobies among them, but the first recorded Australian sighting of a lone South American booby sunbathing at Marks Point has incited a sensation.

The Cocos Booby - a seabird once taxonomically lumped with the common Brown Booby, and sometimes mistaken for it - is native to the eastern and central Pacific Ocean and has rarely been seen further west than about Hawaii.

The pelagic species, formerly known as Brewster's Booby, was reclassified in 2024 and regained its standing as a unique variety of the avian family.

It spends much of its life at sea, is commonly found on the South American coastline, and can travel vast distances to colonise new islands.

But it is believed a Lake Macquarie sighting late last month marks an Australian first for the species, the latest example of a phenomenon birding experts say is rare but not unprecedented in the region.

BirdLife Australia adviser and Hunter Bird Observers Club committee member Mick Roderick, who has led state conservation efforts to protect the critically endangered regent honeyeater, said the Hunter may see one or two first sightings a year.

"They are normally on the other side of the Pacific Ocean where they breed on islands off the Colombian coast and up through Central America," Mr Roderick said of the specimen that has captured a murmuration of attention in recent weeks.

"They have recently started to colonise islands around Hawaii, so they might be shifting their range into the Central Pacific, but there are basically no records anywhere in the southern hemisphere except the Peruvian coastline."

Michelle Keith is a lifelong birder, daughter of Hunter Wetlands Centre founder Max Maddock and a board member of the same organisation.

She said the flurry of excitement at the sighting had been spurred by citizen scientists from across the country lighting up birding forums and groups to identify the visitor.

A photo will appear on an observer club message board or public forum and the details will be exhaustively scrutinised and catalogued. Images will be densely annotated and compared to official records as the experts gradually come to consensus.

It was the pursuit of the dedicated and the devoted; the lifers and the happily obsessed.

"Birders are a peculiar bunch of people," she said. "Sometimes it goes right down to the genetics."

"Once it gets in you - once you start looking at birds - your whole perspective on life is distracted whenever you see wings or feathers or a beak fly past you."

She added, "I'm Max Maddock's daughter. I've been doing this all my life."

Weather, changing food routes, or climate-related habitat pressure were all possible explanations for the visitor's arrival, Ms Keith said, but it was impossible to say definitively what caused the booby to appear at Lake Macquarie.

Mr Roderick said it was plausible that the bird could have just as likely come by boat, which could explain how it found its way off its natural home on the open ocean to comparatively inland climes.

The booby takes its name from the Spanish word 'bobo', which he said translates to 'fool' or 'half-wit'.

According to apocrypha, it was given its name by Spanish sailors on account of the bird's docile temperament and uncommon comfort around humans.

The birds would land on sailing ships and be so approachable that sailors could pick them up and make an easy meal.

"They're known for this. I don't think it's unreasonable that this bird could have hitched a ride," Mr Roderick said.

In a serendipitous twist, Ms Keith was looking forward to an impending trip to the visitor's more common home on the other side of the Pacific.

"I can't wait," she said. "The birds of South America are phenomenal."

"The more I know about birds. Well, the more I know about birds. And the more my computer fills up with bird photos."

The record sighting has even sparked a boon for the local economy, as signs have appeared alongside the specials board of the Post Office Cafe offering kayaks and boat rides to see the attraction.

"Birdwatching can bring money into an area," Mr Roderick said. "Especially when things like this happen, people come and spend their money where the rare bird is."

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Daly, Paul Alwyn
1959 - 2026

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Jennings, Lenore Gai (Formerly Ellen)
2026

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Lawrence, Peter
2026

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Macneill, Elva
2021 - 2026

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