The Blue-footed Booby: a Marine Bird

The Blue-footed Booby is a type of sea bird with long wings. It belongs to the Sulidae family, which consists of ten different species of long winged sea birds. Being the Blue-footed Booby is a marine bird and only lands along rocky coast in order to breed, they are very clumsy on land. The word Booby is 'Bobo' in Spanish, meaning stupid or clown like. They were called Bobo to describe how they looked when on land.

The Blue-footed Booby can be seen in Central America, especially on the Galapagos Islands, in the west coast of Mexico, northern part of South America and some have been seen in Southern California.

On average, the Booby is 32 inches long and weights right around 3 pounds. Their wings are pointed and long with an average wingspan of 62 inches and a long pointed tail and bill. Their body is white with brown wings and stripes along their heads and back. They have entirely webbed feet that are blue, ranging from a turquoise to deep aquamarine.

Female Boobies look just the same as the males with the exception of males have lighter colored feet and are slightly smaller than the females. Juvenile Boobies have a white belly and are dark everywhere else. It takes two to three years for a Booby to get its adult feathers.

When courting the males will show off his blue feet and dance about to try an impress a female. The males will also spread open their wings, point their bills high in the air and make a whistling sound. If all goes well the male and female will meet back at the breeding grounds.

Instead of building a nest, the female Booby will lay one to three eggs in a shallow hollow right on the ground. The male and female will then take turns incubating the egg for 41 to 45 days. Once born the chick will stay with its parents for two months.

The blue-footed Booby eats fish, feeding mainly on sardines, flying fish, mackerel and anchovies. Squid can also be part of their diet. The Boobies dive into the water from heights between 30 and 100 feet high and hit the water at close to 60mph, diving as far down as 82 feet. Just before hitting the water, they fold their wings, which allows them shoot into the water like a torpedo. The males hunt in shallow water while the females, being able to hold more food, hunt in the deeper waters.

Similar species to the Blue-footed Booby include the Northern Gannet, Brown Booby, Red-footed Booby and the Masked Booby.

Sources:

www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.govwww.galapagosonline.com