Swimming with boobies
VulcanSpirit
Richard & Alison Brunstrom
Mon 4 Apr 2011 12:13
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Boobies and gannets are very closely related birds,
all placed in the genus Sula; there are nine species in the world
- the six boobies are tropical, the three gannets temperate. The northern
gannet, Sula bassana, is a familiar sight diving for fish around
the UK coasts. Here in the Caribbean we see the brown booby, Sula
leucogaster, which does plunge dive like the gannet, but from much closer
to the water. As seabirds it is difficult to get close to them,
but in the gap between the islands of Jost van
Dyke and Little Jost van Dyke in the BVIs it is possible to swim with them,
within touching distance.
Here are a couple of brown boobies on a
rock.
 The two islands are joined by a sand bar
covered by ankle deep water. Water flows constantly from the Atlantic over the
bar. The picture below is looking over the bar (note person wading in the
centre) towards the Atlantic surf in the distance.
 At one side a shallow 'stream' runs through the bar
with a few small deeper pools of up to a metre in depth. These pools and
connecting stream are full of small fish - it really is like fish soup.
Here they are; I don't know what they are, but they are up to about 15cm and
there are thousands of them.
 I presume they are attracted by the constantly
flowing water bringing food - and they in turn attract predators, from
small sharks (which get into water so shallow that they have to wriggle like an
eel to get through, with half their bodies exposed) to fishing birds like
boobies and brown pelicans Pelecanus occidentalis (which when
flying always remind me of pterodactyls; they look straight out of the age
of the dinosaurs).
 Here is a 1m shark, perhaps a juvenile black tipped
shark Carcharhinus limbatus, swimming round Alison's legs.
 And here am I swimming with one. Bigger
animals (2m) come in, but we didn't see them.
 The birds are fishing in clear water less than a
metre deep, full of fish. And they allow careful snorkellers to share the pools
with them. So engrossed are they in their fishing that tourists are ignored, to
the extent that one booby floating past actually bumped into my head while
I was looking underwater. There is no doubt that I got a bigger shock than it
did.
 The underside of a passing booby
 The water is so shallow that the boobies tend to
float on the surface, with their heads immersed looking for a likely catch, and
then 'duck dive', rather than plunging from the air - though they do that
too. Here is a booby looking for his dinner.
  Pelicans plunge dive into the pools too, but
are more wary of humans than the boobies. Both species can be seen actually
catching fish underwater from a distance varying from three metres or so
down to less than a metre - a quite mesmerising experience. Unfortunately due to
a combination of poor technique, bad timing and inadequate equipment none
of our photos of boobies and pelicans underwater came out. Tragic. But a professional photographer would have a field
day - award winning shots are possible here. Joe Boulter please note - you need
to get out here!!
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