Galapagos Island of Boobies

Boobies high above Got D' Fever

Blue-footed Booby

Pretty Blue Feet

Brown Booby

Yellow-Green Feet of the Brown Booby

Booby in Flight

From Chacala we headed west off the mainland coast for the island of Isabela located 40 miles northwest of San Blas. This unique island (a national park and world heritage site) is referred to as the “Galapagos of Mexico” due to its isolation and the large number of bird species including a variety of boobies like the blue-footed booby and the brown booby. The name booby comes from the Spanish term bobo which means stupid, fool, or clown. Being seabirds, boobies are rather clumsy on land and are regarded as foolish for their apparent fearlessness of humans. After anchoring for the night, we took the dinghy ashore the next morning and hiked to some cliffs overlooking the sea, a favorite location for nesting boobies. We were delighted to find blue, yellow, and green-footed boobies as well as young goslings. One mother boobie even proudly revealed her eggs for us to view! Boobies nest on small divots in the ground created as part of a larger colony. Both males and females take turns incubating the eggs, using their feet to keep the eggs warm. The incubation period is 41-45 days with a nest of 1-3 eggs; chicks must be kept warm up to a month old. Blue-footed boobies hunt for fish to feed their young by diving from a height of 33-100 feet into the sea and pursue their prey underwater. The Blue-footed booby has permanently closed nostrils made for diving, necessitating breathing through the corners of their mouths. Facial air sacs under their skin cushion the impact when hitting the water around 60 mph and protect the brain from the enormous pressure when swimming to depths of up to 82 feet. Boobies are comical characters and seem to have a human-like expression. During mating season, the males put on a dance by raising and strutting their colorful feet in front of the females. Perhaps not too different from human males honking their car horns to get females to look at them. The dance also includes “sky-pointing,” which involves the male pointing his head and bill up to the sky, while keeping the wings and tail raised. Females tend to choose males with brighter feet since the brightness decreases with age and lower fertility. It is also believed that food-deprivation can cause a decrease in foot brightness. After our hike along the ridge and back through the sparse forest, we motored the dinghy around the island. From the dinghy we could see brightly colored fish through the clear turquoise water and also saw birds nesting in crevices along the cliff faces.