ON THE WILD SIDE Booby’s got the blues...
Okay, get all the laughs out of your system; booby IS a funny name. It comes from the Spanish “bobo”, meaning foolish or clown-like. That makes sense given how ridiculous this bird looks and how clumsy they seem on land.
They don’t live here, instead hanging out mostly on tropical islands between California and Peru, with about half of them breeding on the Galapagos islands.
The closest relative we have on our shores is the gannet.
Like the gannet they are specialised fish hunters and dive into the water like a spear to catch them. Air sacs inside their skulls act as airbags to protect them when they hit the waves at 60mph.
They can dive up to 82ft deep to chase fish, sardines being their favourite, and males often hunt in shallower waters.
Unlike the gannet’s, booby nostrils are constantly closed so they must breathe through their mouths.
The blue in their feet comes from antioxidants in their food and are used in finding a mate.
The lighter and more blue/turquoise the feet are, the stronger the booby’s immune system and the healthier they are, so the more attractive they are as a mate.
Just two days without decent food makes a booby’s feet dull and unattractive. To show how healthy and good at parenting they are, they attract a mate by standing on the spot and alternately raising their feet in the air and showing off the blue.
This ridiculous display is known as the booby dance.
Most birds have a warm, naked patch on their belly to incubate eggs, but boobies do not. They use their feet to warm up their little ones. They lay two eggs, and boobies don’t wait until all are laid to incubate so one always hatches first. The first chick is bigger than his siblings for the first two months. In a food shortage, the mother will only pay attention to the largest chick. Harsh!