On May 11, Ding Peng, a staff member who was monitoring birds in the Leek Shan Archipelago National Nature Reserve, and volunteers discovered and recorded a rare national second-level key protected wild animal, the red-footed booby.
At that time, Ding Peng and volunteers were monitoring birds, and they suddenly found that thousands of terns perched on the island suddenly all flew up. "At first we thought there was a snake eating eggs at the breeding grounds or a peregrine falcon coming to catch the tern again, but when we looked closely in the sky, we saw a flock of terns surrounding a larger 'blackbird' trying to drive it out of the territory." Ding Peng said that they carefully observed this "black bird", the peregrine falcon? No, it's not so big, is it the white-spotted frigate bird that appeared last year? No, there are no obvious white spots on the body. When the "blackbird" was banished by the terns and gradually approached the monitoring hut where the staff was located, the volunteers finally determined through the telescope that it was a sub-adult bird of the "red-footed booby" from the distant ocean. Ding Peng also quickly recorded its first field HD photo in Zhejiang Province.
The red-footed booby (scientific name: Sula sula), with a body length of about 68–75 cm, is a black-white or smoky-brown booby with a distinctive red-footed white tail. Mainly distributed in the Xisha Islands in China, it is a common species in the South China Sea and is listed in the List of Wild Animals under National Key Protection of China (2021) level II.
According to reports, the red-footed booby is a typical pelagic bird that is difficult to appear in coastal waters under normal circumstances. Prior to this record, there was only one record of the bird being rescued in Zhejiang Province. According to the staff analysis, the red-footed booby rushed to "break into" the Leek Mountain Archipelago, which is likely to be related to the recent weather conditions, causing it to deviate from the normal flight route and living area.
Source: Xiangshan County Media Center
Author: Zhang Yaoyao Ding Peng GeHao
First Instance: Zhou Yanxin
Second instance: Wu Qichao
Third trial: Zhao Juxiang