Red-footed Booby Identification Guide

Key Field Marks

• Smallest of the boobies, with a slim body, long pointed wings, and a wedge-shaped tail
• Bright red or coral-red legs and feet on all color morphs — the most reliable mark
• Bill is pale blue-gray with a pink or reddish base and blackish tip, contrasting with a bare blue-gray face
• Occurs in several color morphs: white morph (mostly white with black flight feathers), brown morph (uniform chocolate-brown), and white-tailed brown morph (brown body with white tail and rump)
• Juveniles are dull grayish-brown overall with dark legs and a dark bill, gradually acquiring adult colors over several years

Similar Species

• Brown Booby: larger and heavier-bodied, sharply two-toned brown-and-white in adults, with yellow (not red) feet and a yellow bill.
• Masked Booby: much larger and bulkier, white with a black facial mask and black flight feathers, yellow bill, gray-yellow legs — white morph Red-footed Booby is smaller and slimmer with red feet.
• Nazca Booby: similar in pattern to Masked but with an orange bill and gray legs, also larger than Red-footed Booby.
• Red feet plus small size and the pink-based bill separate Red-footed Booby from all other boobies at any age once legs are visible.

Habitat, Range & Season

• A pantropical seabird found over warm offshore and pelagic waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Caribbean
• Uniquely among boobies, it nests colonially in trees and shrubs on remote tropical islands rather than on bare ground
• In North American waters it is most reliably seen around the Dry Tortugas, Florida, and in the tropical eastern Pacific off Mexico and Central America
• Present year-round near breeding colonies; wide-ranging and pelagic outside the breeding season

Voice

• Largely silent away from breeding colonies
• At colonies gives low grunts, quacks, and croaking notes during greeting and courtship displays