The Blue-footed Boobies have been seen at least as far north as Point Reyes. They are being seen consistently at Obsidian Butte just south of the Sonny Bono Salton Sea Visitor Center. Mark Stewart, the park ranger, has both videos and still shots on the NWR's Facebook page. When you go to Facebook, type this entire name in the search engine to reach that page: Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge Complex.

A couple of us were expressing our desire to add the BFBO to our ABA area lists when we were watching the Brown Booby from the Edmonds waterfront last Saturday. John Puschock turned to us and said something to the effect of, "Just go." We each had plenty of Alaska air miles so we placed a call to the air miles desk and got on a nonstop flight to San Diego. We went down early Monday morning. I-8 that takes you east to the Salton Sea starts from I-5 just a mile or two north of the airport. It was a pleasant three hour drive to the Obsidian Butte site. The boobies were perched on some rocks just offshore along with Brown Pelicans and both Neotropic and Double-crested Cormorants. We watched them perch, preen and fly for quite a while. We saw seven of them. I walked out on a flat and found eight adult Yellow-footed gulls, so we were able to add those to our lists as well. We had an economy rental car (Chevy Cruze) that had powerful air conditioning to counter the hundred degree heat and was a peppy car on the interstate. At the visitor center we watched a Barn Owl snoozing in a palm tree and saw three Burrowing Owls along Kalin Road. We got to the Salton Sea and back on one tank of gas. We stayed an extra day to do some birding in the mountains and on Point Loma in San Diego. There were reports of reliable sightings of the Bell's Sparrow, recently split from Sage Sparrow, on the east side of the upper Otay Lake dam. We found them just a short walk from the road.

I'm throwing this information out for those of you who might be reading all of the BFBO reports and wishing you were there to tick them. In the immortal words of John, "Just go!"

Carol Riddell
Edmonds

Date: Thu Sep 26 2013 7:29 am
From: lee AT leerentz.com
I was just down in the San Francisco Bay area, and the big news among birders is the visitation of several Blue-footed Boobies to the area: http://goo.gl/T8TN0u

I didn't have binoculars with me, for some reason, and did not attempt to see them, but it would have been a cool experience.

Lee Rentz
Shelton, WA
lee at leerentz.com_______________________________________________

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