Booby Bird

One day Mac’s father Lincoln (Bluesy) arrived home with a baby booby bird.  He said he had spotted it on some rocks while out fishing, and that it seemed to have been abandoned by its mother.  The little booby was pure white, very cute and obviously terrified.

To my surprise Bluesy said I should take the bird, I could keep it safe until it learned to fly. Momma Simmons didn’t want it around the house and no-one ever wanted to “vex” Momma!  Well, I knew nothing about raising birds but how hard could it be? I would only be keeping it for a short while, sooner or later it would fly away.  Bluesy put the booby in a box and told Momma’s maid to drop it at my house later, once I was home from school.

There was something about Momma’s maid that I didn’t know … for some reason Bequians called her “Booby Shit”.  That was why she looked so upset when Bluesy told her to carry the booby over to Friendship!  I couldn’t understand why Momma and Bluesy were laughing until Mac (also laughing) explained it to me that evening.  The poor woman was teased every step of the way along the road to Friendship, the story had leaked and everyone knew that “Booby Shit” had a baby booby in a box.

I was standing on my porch when she arrived with my new pet, angry and red in the face.  I could hear shouts of, “Booby Shit! Booby Shit” from the road as she dumped the box on my front steps.  Without a word she turned and stomped away, leaving me with the baby booby.  I felt badly, people teased that poor woman for weeks.

The booby liked to perch and I would leave him with bits of food on the porch railing each morning.  On my return from school booby would still be there. He didn’t seem very happy and I wondered when he would learn how to fly. I certainly wasn’t able to show him how!  He was eating, his feathers were changing color and I could see that he was growing, maybe he just needed a nudge.

One evening I took him with me down to De Reef.  Before supper I planned to put him in the sea to see if he could swim.  It wasn’t natural for him to sit on a railing all day eating human food.  A young man on the beach asked me what I was doing and I told him I wanted to encourage the bird to fly.  He seemed interested, and as he lived right there in Lower Bay I asked if he would mind keeping the bird until it was able to fly.  He thought about it, then said he would keep the booby if it was worthy.  Worthy?  I asked him what he meant by worthy.  He said that he would take the bird into the sea and dive with it, staying down as long as he could.  If the bird lived it was worthy.

Silently I picked my booby up, tucked him under my arm and went home.  I put him to perch on the railing and the next morning he was gone.  This to me is proof that booby birds have ears!