Red and blue footed boobies are a famous kind of bird native to the Galapagos islands. We saw a lot of them this past week and they were my favorite animal.  I divided the blog into three sections, one for blue feet, red feet, and Nazca.

Blue Footed Boobies I personally preferred the blue footed boobies to the red ones because I think they are cuter, also because the females are bigger. Both male and female have thick necks and look like ovals with limbs. The tail is wedge shaped and they have yellow eyes. The way a blue footed booby mates is famous. I learned about this because I asked if a red and blue footed booby were to mate, would they have a purple footed booby? The answer is no because the females with blue feet can only see the colors black, white, and blue. The same goes for red footed boobies except they see red instead of blue. So when they mate the male will spread his wings and whistle, and then lift up his feet one at a time, to show that his feet are the correct color. When he does this the female will do the same thing and they will dance around in a little circle. If the female still doesn’t like the male he will fly off to go find her a twig or rock as a present, hoping to win her favor. Usually as soon as the first male leaves a lot of other males who have not yet mated will come and start vying for her attention until the first male comes back and scares them all away. He will then give her the little present he found and hope she then agrees to be his mate. Usually she does. The more a male mates the more diluted their feet colors will become. In theory you could tell the rounded age of one of the birds by looking at their feet, but I’m not sure if the birds have to mate every year. Personally I think the method giant tortoises have is much more efficient. All they do is have the males stretch up their necks and whoever’s taller gets the girl.

Red Footed Boobies Red footed boobies are smaller than blue footed ones and make nests in trees instead of on the ground. Their feet are, of course, red and their bills are a bright vibrant blue. They also have white feathers instead of gray. They eat small fish and squid that they dive for.

Nazca Boobies Nazca boobies are quite un-extraordinary, with white and black feathers. They have orange bills and gray feet. They usually lay two eggs and from when they are hatched to juvenile the chicks are extremely fluffy. But of these two eggs only one will live because the first to hatch will be bigger and push the other bird out of the nest! The mother will not do anything and undoubtedly the bird will die. Scientists call this survival of the fittest.  There are lots of Nazca boobies all over the Galapagos.   Who knew feet and nice older brothers/sisters were so important?