Blue-footed Booby

This is a true story. When Friar Tomás de Berlanga reached the Galápagos Islands in 1535, he wrote to the King of Spain that he had found “many birds like those of Spain, but so silly that they did not know how to flee”, and that they let themselves be caught by hand.

We don’t know exactly which birds he meant, but he described something that still amazes visitors: the islands’ animals are hardly afraid of people. In English, these birds are called boobies, a word that comes from the Spanish “bobo”, meaning silly, because on land they walk in a clumsy, trusting way.

But there’s nothing silly about them: at sea they are expert fishers, able to dive from more than 20 metres high. And on land, the males dance to win over a female: they point their beaks to the sky, whistle and march, lifting their blue feet.