I just got a text from Kevin Yates. I had suggested he look at Frigatebirds.
He now says that is more like what he saw.
Somebody go find it.
Paul Sullivan
From: Paul Sullivan [mailto:paultsullivan@xxxxxxxxxxxx] ;
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2019 10:12 AM
To: obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; birding-neoregon-group@xxxxxxx
Subject: FW: Red-footed booby
Kevin Yates, the observer who reported the booby has given me permission to
share his full post with OBOL. See the email exchange below.
I talked to Kevin. He lives in Milton-Freewater. He lived in Michigan for 20
years.
He said the bird he saw was flying east over the RR tracks between I-84 and the
Columbia River.
He said the bird he saw had a grayish-blue bill, and the Brown Boobies he sees
online have lighter bills.
Paul Sullivan
From: C Kevin Yates [mailto:cbrd1978@xxxxxxxxx] ;
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2019 10:45 PM
To: Paul Sullivan <paultsullivan@xxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:paultsullivan@xxxxxxxxxxxx> >
Subject: Re: Red-footed booby
Yes Paul you can definitely share the info. The other unique thing about this
bird was that there were no other markings or color on the bird. I've looked at
shearwaters and albatrosses, but nothing matches with what I saw. I'll do some
more research on the brown booby.
My phone number is
616-298-1916. Give me a ring sometime. I can talk to you about it better over
the phone.
On Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 21:44 Paul Sullivan <paultsullivan@xxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:paultsullivan@xxxxxxxxxxxx> > wrote:
Hi Kevin,
The only record of a Red-footed Booby in Oregon was well offshore. We have 20
records of Brown Booby, some from near shore. Have you considered the juvenile
Brown Booby? It is uniformly dark brown.
Would you mind if I shared your sighting with Oregon Birders on Line, a
listserv?
Paul Sullivan
--------------------
From: C Kevin Yates [mailto:cbrd1978@xxxxxxxxx ;<mailto:cbrd1978@xxxxxxxxx> ]
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2019 7:35 PM
To: paultsullivan@xxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:paultsullivan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Red-footed booby
Hello my name is Kevin Yates and I am an active birder. I've been birding for
at least 50 [years] our more and have a little over 600 birds on my lifelist.
I saw an unusual bird yesterday morning I'm guessing around mid morning
somewhere between Biggs Junction and Arlington.
I am a truck driver and as I was driving east on I-84, I saw a bird flying
east a little higher up along the south side of the Columbia River/freeway. I
got a really good look as I drove by. It was a pelagic bird that was uniformly
dark brown all over, had a five foot wingspan, a fairly long tail, a heavy
stout bill that came down to a point. The wings at the elbow came back at a
fairly Sharp angle from the rest of the wing and had pointed wing tips. The
body looked like a long torpedo shape.
I've seen a lot of gulls over the years. I have 2 bird books in the truck plus
my binoculars. Barska 10x30x60 zoom.
I was going to pull over and have better look, but I was under the gun to get
over to Twin Falls,ID to pick up the rest of the load.
I've also done a lot of searching on Google and I keep coming back to the
Red-footed booby.
A birding friend of mine up in La Grande sent me your email.
Maybe you can help dial in on what I saw, seems as though it was a bit
misplaced.
Thank you.
