Born to the Wind: The Tasman Booby’s Remote Life

On Norfolk Island, the Tasman booby returns each season to raise its young against the wind. Its presence is steady but not guaranteed, shaped by natural rhythms and human change.

Young Tasman booby showing its downy plumage, the early stage before its sleek adult feathers grow in.

At the Island’s Edge

The wind on Norfolk Island never quite stops. It rushes over the cliffs in endless waves, carrying the cries of seabirds and the scent of salt and earth. Standing at the island’s edge, I often looked up to see them: white bodies cutting through the blue sky, black-tipped wings outstretched like sails. The masked boobies were always there, soaring or settled on the rock ledges with quiet authority, as if they had always belonged. I had come to this remote place hoping to catch a glimpse of the rare and elusive green parrot. But in the end, it was the booby, unmistakable and present, that captured me.

Tasman booby pair, mother and chick, resting on one of Norfolk Island’s remote coastal ledges.

The Booby with Dark Eyes: A Subspecies Once Thought Lost

The masked booby (Sula dactylatra) is already an impressive seabird, but the Tasman booby (S. d. tasmani) stands apart. Once thought extinct, this subspecies quietly reappeared on remote islands like Norfolk and Lord Howe, nesting far from human view. It is the largest of its kind, with a wingspan that can reach beyond 1.8 meters, and deep, dark irises that give it a more solemn look than its golden-eyed relatives.

This is a bird adapted to vast, open marine environments. With narrow, streamlined wings and a pointed bill, it is built for long-distance gliding and high-velocity plunge-diving. Boobies can drop from heights of up to 30 meters to pursue flying fish and squid, using their aerodynamic bodies to cut through the air and enter the water with minimal resistance. They typically forage alone or in small groups, covering great distances across pelagic zones in search of food (Steeves et al., 2005).

Breeding colonies are established on exposed, often windswept coastal plateaus or islets, where pairs nest directly on the ground. This behavior makes eggs and chicks vulnerable to human disturbance and invasive predators such as feral cats and rats, an issue that historically decimated many seabird colonies in the South Pacific. Although predator control has been effective on Norfolk and nearby Phillip Island, long-term monitoring shows a significant decline in Tasman booby nest numbers on Nepean Island from 1975 to 2010 (Coyne, 2015).

While not officially listed as endangered, the Tasman booby remains vulnerable to environmental shifts. Rising sea temperatures, changing ocean currents, and irregular food availability associated with El Niño events may alter their foraging success and breeding cycles. Human activity also continues to shape the landscape, and with Norfolk Island’s limited landmass, the balance between wildlife and development remains delicate. Still, the boobies return. Each season, they lay their pale, chalky eggs on stone ledges where wind, sea, and time meet.

An adult Tasman booby, distinguishable by its dark irises and large wingspan, perched near its nesting site.

Seabirds of the Cliffs: Observing the Tasman Booby in Context

I would not see them every day. But whenever I wandered to the cliffs, the ragged, windswept edges of the island, they were the first birds I looked for. And almost always, they were there. Silent and still, or else carving wide, slow circles through the sky far above the sea. The masked boobies flew higher than any of the others, their large white bodies unmistakable against the deep blue, black-tipped wings spread like open sails.

Norfolk Island is full of birds, many of them impossibly elegant; white terns that flutter like petals, red-tailed tropicbirds trailing ribbons through the air, wedge-tailed shearwaters gliding low above the surf. But the booby was different. Bigger, quieter, almost statuesque in its stillness. Where other birds danced, the booby floated.

They nested along the cliffs in exposed little hollows, often alone or spaced far apart, as if they needed room to breathe. I would stop and watch them, sometimes from above, sometimes from the beach below, feeling like I had stumbled into a ritual far older than the trails I walked.

There were days when I searched for the green parrot in the forests and found only branches. But at the coast, the booby waited. And over time, they became a kind of quiet anchor. Not rare, not hidden, but powerful in their presence. They reminded me that not all wonder needs to be chased. Some of it simply is, if you take the time to look.

Molting juvenile Tasman booby, midway between chick and capable flier.

Currents and Consequences

Now that I have left Norfolk, I think about the boobies more than I expected. I miss the way they floated above the cliffs without urgency, how their presence gave shape to the coastlines. Their lives continue there without me, on nests built into stone, under skies that turn quickly from clear to storm. And though they are not endangered, not critically watched or fiercely protected, they still depend on stability; on space to nest, on unpolluted waters, on the balance of wind and season.

Human footprints are increasing in the South Pacific, and climate shifts ripple through its ecosystems in ways that are still being understood. Even birds as resilient as the Tasman booby feel those changes. And as recent research from nearby Lord Howe Island shows, not even remote oceanic sanctuaries are safe from human impact. Seabirds there, like the flesh-footed shearwater, have been found with stomachs full of plastic fragments, sometimes more than 200 pieces per chick, causing internal injuries, starvation, and even neurodegenerative effects similar to Alzheimer’s disease in humans (Roman et al., 2024; Lavers et al., 2023). Some birds crunch when picked up, their bodies filled with plastic waste that echoes our presence in the most haunting way (Paddison, 2025). It is a reminder that pollution does not recognize isolation; that what we discard always finds its way back to the living.

So much of conservation begins not with crisis, but with noticing; with paying attention to the lives that go on quietly around us.

The booby may not be rare. But sometimes, it is the familiar that teaches us how to care.

---

These birds reminded me that even in the quietest, most far-flung places, nature is watching, soaring, and adapting. If this story moved you, share it with someone else who cares. Or better yet, look into the lives of the seabirds near you.

References

Coyne, M. (2015). The Tasman masked booby Sula dactylatra tasmani of Nepean and Phillip Islands, Norfolk Island Group: Breeding population size and trends 1975–2010. Australian Bird Bander, 39(3), 61–66. absa.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Vol39No3_Pg61-66_Coyne_TasmanBooby.pdf

Lavers, J. L., & Bond, A. L. (2017). Exceptional and rapid accumulation of anthropogenic debris on one of the world’s most remote and pristine islands. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(23), 6052–6055. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1619818114

Paddison, L. (2025, May 23). The birds on this tiny, remote island are so full of plastic their bellies crunch. CNN Climate. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/23/climate/seabirds-plastic-contamination-crunchy-australia

Roman, L., Hardesty, B. D., et al. (2024). Plastic ingestion in seabirds: Widespread and lethal impacts on marine avifauna. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 197, 115739.

Steeves, T. E., Anderson, D. J., & Friesen, V. L. (2005). A role for nonphysical barriers to gene flow in the diversification of a highly vagile seabird, the masked booby (Sula dactylatra). Molecular Ecology, 14(12), 3877–3887. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2817237/