Red-footed Booby (adult, resident) - a photo on Flickriver

            Bird Island | Seychelles

Red-footed Booby (Sula sula)
Sometimes called the Tree Booby, because of where it nests, the Red-footed is the smallest of all the world’s boobies.  It comes in two forms, brown morph, which is by far the most common worldwide, and the white morph, which is the variety found in Seychelles.  Adult birds are predominantly white with black upperwings, blue/pink-grey bill and, of course, big red feet.  Juveniles are entirely dark grey-brown with dark purple or black bill and pinkish legs and feet.  They breed on Aldabra and Cosmoledo, which are Seychelles outer islands over 1000km from Bird Island.   It’s a pelagic species spending the majority of its life at sea and when not nesting it is rarely seen, so we are fortunate to always encounter a few on Bird Island high up in the casuarina trees with the Frigatebirds.

Whilst they’re great to see, you want to photograph them flying.  The problem is that unless they’re changing position or just stretching their wings they generally head straight out to sea as soon as they take off, so the opportunities for decent flight shots are few and far between.  On this occasion there were three birds together on a nicely exposed branch right at the top of the tree.  It was mid-morning so I knew that it was only a matter of time before they took to the air.  I had my lens trained on them for over an hour before they flew.  Fortunately I was using my monopod, but I was out in the open in full sun and 30 degree plus heat - nobody said that wildlife photography was easy on a desert island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, but someone has to do it :)  A bit of cloud came and went during the time I waited but, for once, my patience was rewarded.

Taken in: Seychelles / Baie Ste. Anne / Bird Island Airport (show map)

Taken on: November 16, 2015

Tags:

Bird Island

Red-footed Booby

Sula sula « less

Sets appears in: • Birds of Seychelles • Frigatebirds & Boobies

Camera: Nikon D810, f/8.0, 1/1600 sec, 420mm, ISO 280 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D810
Lens:	300.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture:	f/8.0
Exposure Time:	0.001 sec (1/1600)
Focal Length:	420mm
ISO:	280
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Manual
Light Source:	Cloudy
Sharpness:	Hard
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.7 (Macintosh)
Show full info

Stats: 1,382 views / 2 comments

go back

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder