Masked Booby

The masked booby, or blue-faced booby, is the largest booby, 75–85cm long with a wingspan of 160–170cm and a weight of 1.2–2.2kg. The adult is bright white with dark brown-black flight feathers and tail, and bare black or blue-black skin around the face and throat that forms a mask. It has the typical booby shape: a long, pointed, yellowish bill longer than the head with serrated edges, a long neck, streamlined body, long slender wings and a pointed tail. The sexes look alike, though females are slightly larger (Wikipedia, general species account).

It ranges across tropical oceans except the eastern Atlantic and eastern Pacific, where the Nazca booby, once treated as a subspecies, replaces it. It nests in colonies, generally on islands and atolls far from the mainland and close to deep water. The female lays two chalky white eggs in a shallow scrape on bare ground, and the elder chick usually kills the younger. It is a spectacular plunge-diver and feeds mainly on flying fish. SoIB 2023 lists it as a winter visitor to Indian waters but gives no trend or priority (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).