Featured Image Credit: Wild Care, Inc.
Hurricane Jose brought a never-before-seen bird to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The large masked booby, which is a rare visitor to North America, usually resides in tropical oceans such as the Gulf of Mexico or the South Atlantic.
Stephanie Ellis, Executive Director of Wild Care, said the tropical bird was thin and weak with a likely fungal infection.
“Wild Care is not open to the public, and stabilization of this bird is critical at this time,” Ellis said. It is a very unusual occasion that this bird was this far north. Masked boobys are rarely even seen in Florida and typically stay within the realm of the Gulf of Mexico. This bird has also never been reported on Massachusetts’s soil!
This masked booby wasn’t the only bird to be blown in by the track of Hurricane Jose. A dozen storm-blown seabirds that were being treated at Cape Wildlife Center were released last Sunday.