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A---Brown Booby? At this time of year! At this time of day! In this part of the country! Localized entirely within Spring Mills State park?!?
A rare sighting of a Brown Booby in Indiana
Last Thursday, June 5th 2024, a juvenile Brown Booby was spotted in Spring Mills State park in Mitchell, Indiana. As of writing this, June 12th, and to the best of my knowledge the bird is still there. But if you’re not a birder you may be asking yourself why is this significant. Two reasons, this is only the second time a bird of his species has been seen in Indiana. The first time was in 2019 and it supposedly only stuck around for an hour or so before flying off. Second, these birds don’t migrate and their range looks a little something like this:
Lynx Edicions/BirdLife International
I’m no cartographer but I have been known to color inside the lines quite well and there are no colors inside the lines of the USA and definitely not Indiana. This bird is far from where it should be and there’s no telling why it ended up in Indiana. So for many a land locked birder this was a, somewhat, once in a lifetime opportunity to see a Brown Booby. I took the opportunity myself and made the trip to Spring Mills to photograph this Brown Booby. While it took over five hours for the bird to put on a display, it was well worth it.
Oddly, it seemed like a short five hours standing on the dock, pier thing waiting for the Brown Booby to do something other than sit on it’s branch. There were always plenty of people about, many with stories to share about a time they’ve seen one bird or another. Having just started a year and a half ago in birding, my stories are few and not quite that interesting but the time passed easily listening to others. Birding, for me, is often a solitary activity and while I do enjoy it that way being a part of the community and sharing our enthusiasm for these creatures is pretty nice.
