Red-footed Booby, Spain

In early June 2019 news broke of a Red-footed Booby hanging around at a small harbour at Caleta de Velez in Malaga province, about three-quarters of a hour’s drive east of Malaga itself (and it subsequently transpired that it had first been seen in late May). It’s a world tick for me, so I was interested, but I pulled back a few times from going for it for various reasons (work, flight costs, gaps in gen, etc.). News on it was increasingly patchy, but with it still present past mid-August, I finally cracked and booked flights for a day trip. On 20 August I got an early flight from Bristol to Malaga, feeling a little conspicuous among all the holidaymakers. With no luggage I beat the crowd to the hire car desks and was away pretty quickly, but still didn’t arrive on site until just before 11 am.

An immediate sinking feeling as I checked the tall light structures it had been favouring and found nothing but Yellow-legged Gulls. A short while later another birder turned up, dropping in for a brief look before heading off to his holiday villa, but headed away unrequited. After a while I nipped off too, for food and water and the loo, but no joy on my return either. 

And so the day went on – long stints hanging around and scanning off the harbour wall, interspersed with short visits to a stub road at the back of the town where I had found some birds, to break up the monotony. I built up a decent little list of birds that way: Crag Martin, Red-rumped Swallow, Serin, Hoopoe, Monk Parakeet, and cracking views of Audouin’s Gulls at the harbour. But no booby.

When the trawlers headed back in late afternoon with streams of gulls behind them but still no sign of the target bird, I kind of knew. Hoping that it might come in to roost, I stuck it out as close to dusk as I could before heading off to catch my flight, but still no joy. Back at the airport I texted Paul C to say I’d dipped, and then the blow fell. He’d seen a pic of it on Twitter from that morning, and was surprised I hadn’t seen the bird. Back home in the early hours I checked, and yes, there it was – a headshot posted by Pete Stronach just before I got there. It had been there for nearly three months and I missed it by no more than an hour (maybe no more than 10 minutes)! It was never seen again. I don’t think ‘gutted’ quite covers it.