In this species of birds, it's the females who have all the power. The males work tirelessly to build a nest, then take 20 minutes to blow up their red sac, then chirp and shake their wings and red sack to attract the females who are flying above looking down at their options below.
Once a female has chosen a male, she lands next to him, inspects his nest and him, and if she is not fully impressed she destroys the nest and flies off searching for another male who would better meet her needs!
Of course after such an experience, any male's ego would be deflated. And in this case, it's more than the ego... the male has to start the whole process over again. Poor fellow!
A male frigate bird flies above our ship. (they usually fly deflated)
A female frigate bird soon follows suit.
Sometimes though, you will find a fully inflated male frigate bird flying above, as we did only once. It was quite a funny sight!
Masked boobies, aptly named due to the black feathers around their eyes, are one of three types of boobies found on the Galapagos Islands. In this species, the male and female look quite similar.
Two masked boobies are grooming each other and picking out parasites that live under their feathers.
Look closely and you will see a landscape of booby nests. It is just odd to see birds nesting on the ground because there aren't many predators here and there aren't that many trees too!!
The second subspecies of boobies are the red footed boobies, which have as the name suggests bright red coloured feet as well as blue beaks.
Here is a young red footed booby in its nest of very dry (and probably not very comfortable) branches. We found the red boobies pretty boring compared to their blue-footed cousins...
The blue-footed boobies!, which have of course blue feet, but oddly, not blue beak. We decided it was best not to ask, as it might confuse us even more!
In this subspecies, the male and female blue footed boobies also look quite similar. However, you can tell them apart by looking closely at their beady little eyes! The males have smaller pupils than the females. Really that is the only visual difference!!
We preferred to tell them apart by their mating calls -- and as their were very active here, we didn't have to wait long at all. The females honked, while the males whistled. It was funny, there was lots of honking and whistling going on!!
So, here's the ritual... the male usually starts with a little dancing. He will lift his left foot...
... and then his right foot... and the procedure can repeat itself for a little while. The theory goes that he is showing how blue his feet are to the female (bright colours are attractive to females).
Then he will go right up to the female and put his head and wings up high.
And, if interested, she will usually respond in a similar fashion, but with a honk. Then the male moves around little twigs (to symbollize that he will help her build a nest for the baby).
And if she is receptive, she allows the male to jump on her back and ...
A female blue-footed booby with two eggs. Notice what seems like an explosion of white around the nest. This was the explation we received; the female needs to move around the eggs regularly (as the top part which is closest to her gets too hot after a while). So this egg rotating process also requires her to move around the nest. The white "explosion" around the nest is only the result of her constantly moving around the nest to adjust the egg temperature and not getting up to excrete.
A mother with her young very white and puffy chick.
Yes there are sea gulls even on the Galapagos Islands -- over 1000 KM from the mainland!! You just can't escape them!
These are swallow tail gulls, which have a distinctive red outline around their eyes.
This is the Galapagos famous headless bird!
Actually this is probably a sleeping gull or booby. They stick their head under their wings and stand up while they are sleeping.
