On Friday 8/6/12 around midday at Bermagui while parked on the headland above
the bay at Dickson Park I observed this seabird cruising around the bay over a
period of twenty minutes or so ; occasionally disappearing along the coast for
a few minutes and then coming back into the bay. Similar behaviour and
appearance from a distance to that of an Australasian Gannet, only much
smaller. It usually cruised well above the water, it's slow wingbeats
producing quite fast flight. Occasionally it would fly low on the water or dive
vertically from various heights. Usually the bird was well out over the bay and
all pictures I took with my hand held pocket camera are dreadful mainly due to
my inability to focus !! However, bad as they are, I thought it worth
putting them up to see someone could identify it. My own conclusion, having
little experience with sightings of offshore birds, was that it was a juvenile
Brown or Masked Booby. The patchy colouring makes it difficult to separate from
either of the two juvenile illustrations in any of my field guides. 
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