I arrived at Bill Williams NWR, at the south end of Lake Havasu on November 25th with only 3 hours of daylight left hoping that the Blue-footed Booby might make an appearance but as the sun fell over the mountains I knew I’d have to stick around until the next day.
I returned to the spot the next morning and began scoping out the area, checking the shorelines and marker buoys out on the lake on the off chance it would be sitting on one but again no luck.
Three hours went by and I was seeing Western, Clark’s, Red-necked, Pied-billed and Eared Grebes. Many ducks including great views of many male Barrow’s Goldeneye. Gulls flew by constantly but the bird I wanted was a no show.
There were also a few warblers, Verdin and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers in the shrubbery around the lookout.
Anyone whose birded with me will tell you, I may not be able to hear the bird but I can pick one out from a long way off.
At 12:30 something caught my eye on the far shore, up went the binoculars and then verified by scope. In came the Booby, circled the area near the bridge and plunge diving, similar to Gannets, near the bridge to my right but still a good distance away. I decided to try and work my way along the shore in that direction, hoping to get closer for a decent image.
You can imagine my disappointment, when I reached my goal and the Booby was feeding in the area I had just been and then took off for the north end of the lake. I whispered to myself “Please just one more pass” and almost like magic the bird turned around and started to come right at me.
All of the sequence of images too about 10 seconds but I was only using my 300 f4 lens so the bird had to be close….a very cool bird, that made a dive right in front of me and if I was judging him at the Olympics, he’d get a perfect 10.
Here are my two best images from that afternoon
Ciao for now…….
BIRDQUEST2004 