Filed under: blue-footed, boobies, booby, Ecuador, Galapagos, nature
Galapagos Wildlife vol. 2: Boobies!
…and who doesn’t love boobies?
Vying for the title of most characteristic animal in the Galapagos is the glorious booby (boy, I wish I was making that up). There are many different types of booby, but the most famous—for reasons that will follow—is the blue-footed booby.
Aside from their namesake bright blue feet, blue-footed boobies perform one of the Galapagos’ most famed rituals: a mating dance in which a male ‘walks’ by raising each foot deliberately, so as to show off his greatest assets, and hopefully impress a mate.
Pretty much everywhere in the Galapagos, boobies can be seen knifing into the water from great heights, sometimes in great packs, in search of fish. The best place to see the courtship dance though is undoubtedly on North Seymour Island, where thousands of the birds congregate to mate and lay eggs, often in the middle of the footpath!
From the first time I saw videos of these hilarious birds, one of my missions in coming to the islands was to see this courtship dance. Enjoy!
