Booby (Sur)Prise
June 21, 2026
Hello friends! I’m so glad we’ve reached the summer solstice and the darkness can start to return. I miss the stars and the moon. It’s not often I highlight just one bird in a newsletter - but this is no ordinary bird. Without further ado, let’s get to this incredible surprise.
Meet Betty, the Brown Booby! Ok, I don’t know if her name is Betty, since no one here speaks booby. But I feel she needs a name! I saw someone post that conservation officials had confirmed her as a female, but I don’t know for certain that is true.
The brown booby is a seabird, generally found in tropical oceans. This particular bird was first spotted on June 12th at a small conservation center in the middle Kansas City (Anita B. Gorman Conservation Center).
The conservation center has a small - VERY small! - pond with a public sidewalk surrounding it. Betty seems to enjoy diving in the well-stocked pond and seems to be healthy.
Betty spends her days alternatively preening and fishing. Her wing and tail feathers do appear to be mid-molt, and if you look closely at some of the photos, you can see where they are a bit ragged. I’ve been told her current “molt” probably means she’s somewhere between 1 and 3 years old. She doesn’t appear fit for long-distance flight at the moment.
Betty is smaller than the nearby Canada geese, but much larger than the green heron that seems a bit annoyed to be sharing fish with this visitor. According to All About Birds, she has a wingspan somewhere between 52 and 61 inches. For reference, that’s about the wingspan of a Canada goose, though this bird weighs a lot less. She’s larger than a red-tailed hawk and smaller than a great blue heron
.While I was watching, I saw a blue heron come in and try to intimidate her into leaving. Blue did what they do, he landed and proceeded to prance around pretending not to look at her as he slowly edged closer. When he finally squawked and lunged at her, she took off straight at him and the blue heron flew away. She’s not easily intimidated!
Fortunately for Betty, she seems to be an expert fisher - and boy what a show she puts on when she fishes! Betty circles around the pond and then dives in at a shallow angle. Her wings in flight are long and narrow, and she basically becomes a pencil when she enters the water.
I watched her dive for about an hour, and I was completely mesmerized. The speed with which she enters the water is amazing, but equally the speed at which she slows down. She has no problem diving into a small area and doesn’t need much “runway” to get airborne again.
As shocking as it is to see a booby in Kansas City, the fact that she has picked a tiny pond in such close proximity to humans is even more surprising. In 2022, there were several reports of a brown booby in Missouri, but they were scattered about the Ozark lakes which are several orders of magnitude bigger than this pond.
Betty is now the most reported rare bird in Missouri history, and she is likely the most photographed bird in the state as well. Judging from the constant stream of eBird alerts, every birder within hundreds of miles has been to see her. She’s been reported in the local paper and even on NPR.
And why not? Normally to see a booby, I would have to take some kind of tropical pelagic trip. I would likely be quite far away from the birds - certainly further than it’s even possible to be at this small park.
It’s heartening to see how respectful everyone is being of this bird. There are no signs, no protection, but even non-birders are giving this bird space. She seems very unfazed by human presence.
There are always lots of questions when a bird ventures so far from home, the most pressing of which is whether or not the bird will survive and find their way back home.
If she does make it back home, she will have quite a story to tell about her adventure and the paparazzi that followed her. One thing is certain, there are hundreds of hearts sending all the well wishes they can for her well being.
I’ll just leave you with some additional shots that show how uniquely this bird moves and dives. (It’s so hard to narrow down all the photos to just a few!)
May your solstice bring a return of peace along with the returning dark skies.
Who needs World Cup soccer when you have Betty the Brown Booby?!? Thank you so much for sharing this with us - I can feel the excitement and reverence from you and your fellow birders. That pencil dive is truly magnificent!
What a wonderful Solstice gift! Your diving photos are great.