Sula granti
Silhouette: Beth Reinke · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~30%
The Nazca booby (Sula granti) is a large seabird of the booby family, Sulidae, native to the eastern Pacific. First described by Walter Rothschild in 1902, it was long considered a subspecies of the masked booby until recognised as distinct genetically and behaviorally in 2002. It has a typical sulid body shape, with a long pointed orange-yellow bill, long neck, aerodynamic body, long slender wings and pointed tail. The adult is bright white with black and white wings, a black tail and a dark face mask.
Walter Rothschild organised and sent an expedition to the Galapagos Islands in 1897 to collect and review the animal life there. He wrote of a distinctive booby there, which he and William Robert Ogilvie-Grant diagnosed as the Peruvian booby (Sula variegata), then only known from juvenile plumage. Later, in 1902, Rothschild named it a new species, Sula granti. Rothschild later reclassified as a subspecies of the masked booby.
In 1998, Pitman and colleagues observed that Nazca boobies on Clipperton Island did not interbreed with masked boobies there. The genus Sula was previously placed in the order Pelecaniformes, but recently was collected in the family Sulidae and order... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Galápagos Islands | 🇪🇨 Ecuador | |
| 2 | Machalilla National Park | 🇪🇨 Ecuador | |
| 3 | Isla del Coco National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 4 | Cabo Blanco Absolute Nature Reserve | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 5 | Channel Islands National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 6 | Great Bear Rainforest | 🇨🇦 Canada |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Diego | 🇺🇸 United States |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Nazca Booby sighting in Cabo Blanco Absolute Nature Reserve on a given day, based on 52 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 119th most-seen of the 241 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June and July
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Nazca Booby in Cabo Blanco Absolute Nature Reserve on a given day, against under 5% in February–April and August–December, the lowest months. Those are among Cabo Blanco Absolute Nature Reserve's wettest months, with about 460 mm of rain a month against 15 mm in February.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Nazca Booby sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
4th of 6
Of the 6 parks where we can rate Nazca Booby sightings, Cabo Blanco Absolute Nature Reserve ranks 4th at about 10%. The best odds are in Galápagos Islands (Ecuador, about 50%), Machalilla National Park (Ecuador, about 30%) and Isla del Coco National Park (Costa Rica, about 10%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Nazca Booby is recorded against all the birds logged in Cabo Blanco Absolute Nature Reserve (52 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
