![]() They lay a solitary egg on their nest of sticks. Their mating call is a distinctive raspy quack that echoed against the rock walls of Punta Pitt as they flew by. Their beak is a powder blue with a darker patch around the eye and salmon accents above and below. Most have a light brown body but a few are a stark white. It periodically made a bowing motion with its head and neck. ![]() The first Red-footed Booby I saw was perched in a barren tree, where they usually nest. Punta Pitt on the north end of San Cristobal is the only place home to all three. The Red-footed Booby is found en masse on Geneovese Island, while the largest Nazca Booby population is on Espanola. granti), which has a bright white body and a black cowl around its yellow beak. sula websteri), whose beak comes in a palette of pastels, and the Nazca or Masked Booby ( S. Red-footed Booby nodding in a Palo Santo tree just off the trail at Punta Pitt on San Cristobal IslandGalapagos boobies come in two additional models. They made a wide circle in the air before plunging into the water at up to 60 mph with the negligible splash of an Olympic diver. I watched three of the birds feeding in the surf at Puerto Chino. When foraging, Blue-footed Boobies dive from great heights to as deep as 80 feet under water in pursuit of schools of sardines, anchovies and other small fish. They appear willing to invest more in offspring that are more likely to survive. The young apparently hatch one a time, helping to spread out the work of parenting and perhaps allowing one to get a head start when food is scarce. The birds are monogamous, with the male’s degree of participation in raising the young growing with the size and brightness of the female’s eggs. When my colleagues came a week later, the hatchlings from the previous week were noticeably larger and already standing up on their own. Born scrawny and bare, the hatchlings quickly develop a fuzz that turns them into adorable puffs of white down. Most had either two eggs or one hatchling and one unhatched egg. On my visit to Punta Pitt, dozens were spread throughout the barren highlands, sometime right in the middle of the foot path. Over time, birds with an eye for blue feet produced more surviving offspring.īlue-footed Boobies nest in little more than a depression scratched in the dirt. ![]() And females’ feet turn a dark blue when they are ready to mate. Males with especially blue feet have more robust immune systems and are generally healthier because they are eating well. The blue feet probably evolved through sexual selection. If you stop feeding them, their feet quickly fade to gray. The blue feet come from cartenoids in the bird’s diet of fish. Nazca Booby perched on the sea cliffs of Espanola
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |