Caribbean Seabirds and Harbour Birds.

A typical line up around port in any of the Islands includes:

Magnificent Frigatebird

Royal Tern, Laughing Gull and Brown Booby.

Brown Pelican

 Less expected was a Black-headed Gull a long way from home at St Johns, Antigua

Masked Booby is rare and local resident in the W Indies compared to the numerous Brown Booby. The only ones encountered were three birds well offshore (300-400 nautical miles) from the Islands. All three were immature birds with variegated brown and white plumage. If progression to Ad plumage is similar to Gannet then these were 3rd CY and 2nd CY birds.

Another species that appears to  be well offshore when not breeding is Red-billed Tropicbird. Five birds were to the north-east of St Martin on the return journey.

A well out of range 1st winter Brown Booby was encountered on the return Journey (Nov 20th) about 400-500 Nautical miles from the Azores, not as impressive Journey as the two that arrived in Cornwall earlier this year but still a nice surprise. It looked to be wanting to land on the ship towards dusk and I thought there would be a good chance of  seeing it  again when we arrived in Port at Ponta Delgada, Azores next day, but I didn't see it again (it could have left the ship before first light of course).