| Peruvian Booby Sula variegata Chilean name: Piquero |
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Chile January 2007 The Peruvian Booby is restricted to the waters of the Humboldt Current off the Pacific coast of Peru and Chile. It breeds colonially and is one of the guano species responsible for the enormous deposits that were exploited in the 19th century. There is a distribution map on xeno-canto . |
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The adult head is white as are the underparts while the back and wings are dark brown with white tips to the feathers giving a scaled appearance. Note that the eyes are chestnut or brownish not pale yellow as illustrated in various authorities such as HBW, Harrison's "Seabirds " and Alvaro Jaramillo's "Birds of Chile " though the latter does mention the dark eye in the errata. | |||
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Juveniles have brown speckles on the head and
underparts while chicks are large fluffy things as seen in photo
2. They feed mainly on anchoveta which are caught by plunge-diving from a reasonable height above the surface of the sea as in photo 5. |
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