Posted by mmendenhall on July 9, 2014 at 4:35 pm
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This Brown Booby, a tropical seabird, was seen from at least June 28-30 at Hansen Lake in Sarpy County, Nebraska, just south of the Omaha metro area. Joan Bergeron of Bellevue took the photo with her phone on June 30, when the bird was perched atop a covered pontoon boat.
The remarkable sighting is the first of the species in Nebraska. In a post on the state’s birding listserv, Omaha birder Justin Rink writes: “The closest this species has come to Nebraska is southern Arkansas.” Subsequent attempts to find the bird were unsuccessful.
Over at the ABA Blog, Nate Swick notes: “Brown Boobies, and Sulids in general, are strong flyers and prone to dispersal. If one could end up in Nebraska, one could end up anywhere in the ABA Area.”