Blue-footed boobies charm future mates with boogie

By Susan Scott

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Dec 10, 2012

~~<p>ISLA ISABELA, MEXICO » In 1988 when visiting the Galapagos Islands, I met my first blue-footed boobies. The seabirds nested nearly everywhere on the ground there, some raising their chicks right in the middle of paths trod by countless human visitors. Occasionally, if you stepped a bit close to a nest, a parent booby would deliver a jab toward an ankle with an indignant squawk, as if saying, "Watch yourself, Sasquatch.There are kids playing here."</p>
<p>I was so smitten by the birds' feistiness, and their blue-foot two-step, I wanted to plop down on the trail and watch for hours.Our tour guide had other plans. Someday, I vowed, I will find a blue-footed booby colony on my own and watch these feathered darlings to my heart's content.</p>
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ISLA ISABELA, MEXICO » In 1988 when visiting the Galapagos Islands, I met my first blue-footed boobies. The seabirds nested nearly everywhere on the ground there, some raising their chicks right in the middle of paths trod by countless human visitors. Occasionally, if you stepped a bit close to a nest, a parent booby would deliver a jab toward an ankle with an indignant squawk, as if saying, "Watch yourself, Sasquatch.There are kids playing here."

I was so smitten by the birds' feistiness, and their blue-foot two-step, I wanted to plop down on the trail and watch for hours.Our tour guide had other plans. Someday, I vowed, I will find a blue-footed booby colony on my own and watch these feathered darlings to my heart's content. Login for more...