Boobies' pictures

New album was just posted at fotki site:

http://public.fotki.com/vseznayka/south_america/galapagos/boobies/

I can imagine that with the name like that it will quickly become my most popular. Yet, it only contains the pictures of the "blue-footed" kind of boobies - very cute, yet not particularly smart creatures. These two
qualities often go together. While not being particularly smart in other respects, these birds developed a very sophisticated courtship ritual, that includes whistling (as you know from Zara's story Ecuadorian men do it as well), sticking their necks up, twisting their wings to improbable angles and of course dancing - rising their beautiful feet up - left-right, left-right, just like in military ceremonies. Girls like uniforms, don't they?
We were lucky to arrive in the middle of their mating season and it's reflected in some of the photos and also in the video that I'll post as soon as we finish the editing - in about 10 years.

I think I also owe you some explanations on the earlier posted pictures of fregat birds - those with big red bulge on their necks. Only males, BTW, have the bulge - the Nature's way to confirm them as the superior sex. These are smart birds, both males and females. Over the course of evolution they figured how to steal food from other fishing birds and subsequently lost the ability to procure their food in any other way.
Zara wickedly suggested that this quality should have granted fregats the status of Ecuadorian national bird - many locals share the same lifestyle. Although Ecuadorians themselves deny the charges and point the blaming finger at Colombians. Well, I won't be the judge - I don't understand the subtleties of Spanish accents.

Anyway, unlike people, birds fight at work - in the air. The home grounds are sacred and both smart fregats and their victims - stupid boobies, build nests right next to each other. Well, actually it's only the fregats who build the nests, boobies simply drop their eggs on the ground, sometimes right in the middle of tourists walkways.

Misha

P.S. For more complete description of boobies' dances read Kurt
Vonnegut's "Galapagos"