![]() The specific epithet combines the Ancient Greek dactyl, meaning "finger", and the Latin ater, meaning "black". Lesson subsequently provided a formal description of the masked booby in 1831. In his 1829 account of the visit to Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean, Lesson mentioned encountering masked boobies, and in a footnote proposed the binomial name Sula dactylatra. In the multi-volume publication by Duperrey about the voyage, Lesson authored the ornithological sections. The French naturalist René Lesson was a member of the crew on the La Coquille captained by Louis Isidore Duperrey on its voyage around the world undertaken between August 1822 and March 1825. ![]() The species faces few threats although its population is declining, it is considered to be a least-concern species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). These birds are spectacular plunge divers, plunging into the ocean at high speed in search of prey-mainly flying fish. The second chick born generally does not survive and is killed by its elder sibling. The chicks are born featherless, but are soon covered in white down. The female lays two chalky white eggs in a shallow depression on flat ground away from vegetation. Potential and mated pairs engage in courtship and greeting displays. Territorial when breeding, the masked booby performs agonistic displays to defend its nest. Nesting takes place in colonies, generally on islands and atolls far from the mainland and close to deep water required for foraging. In the latter, it is replaced by the Nazca booby ( Sula granti), which was formerly regarded as a subspecies of masked booby. This species ranges across tropical oceans, except in the eastern Atlantic and eastern Pacific. The adult is bright white with black wings, a black tail and a dark face mask at 75–85 cm (30–33 in) long, it is the largest species of booby. It has a typical sulid body shape, with a long pointed yellowish bill, long neck, aerodynamic body, long slender wings and pointed tail. ![]() First described by the French naturalist René-Primevère Lesson in 1831, the masked booby is one of six species of booby in the genus Sula. Hope you are all well and enjoying the summer.The masked booby ( Sula dactylatra), also called the masked gannet or the blue-faced booby, is a large seabird of the booby and gannet family, Sulidae. This is uploaded using mobile data but again far to slow to comment and for biggest part even “see” your photos so I shall wait till I return home to hopefully rejoin the Flickr community. We were booked on holiday and Jonathan refuses to wait any longer for the results saying que sera sera…so we kept the already altered twice booking which is for three weeks but the WiFi is totally abysmal even blocking me by saying not only insecure but stopping me using my own discretion. Telephone enquiries only elicit the response that all test results are now sent by text. He had all the tests ECG chest X-ray and full bloods but only one ambiguous text to say one test had come back normal. Jonathan’s tests were what we (I) wait anxiously for as he still has low oxygen levels several times a day…low enough to mean something serious could be the problem. My own tests revealed high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes for which medication has been prescribed but I am holding off and hoping to lose some weight and have been given six months to hopefully reverse things and stave off the meds which unfortunately my family have an intolerance too. Starting with the plumbing my very good plumber friend has long Covid so we await his recovery to replace our downstairs toilet that has a cracked basin but we have another so can manage to wait till he is fully recovered. I have received some very kind mail from Flickr friends enquiring after Jonathan and myself and also the plumbing.
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