more on those blue footed boobies ....

the booby to the right there is a female, she is skypointing....  there is lots of that from both male and female birds during the blue footed booby courtship ... 

 when we walked over the path of north seymour, we saw countless blue footed boobies ... they were completely oblivious to us for the most part ...one of my favorite moments was three birds standing together ... a female on a rock, a male next to her, and another male a few feet removed standing on a taller rock, clearly watching them .... ready to move in if that first male got rejected by the female ... i'm pretty sure if he could have, he would have been polishing up his big blue feet .....

male boobies walk up to female and lift one foot up (see my nice blue foot) ... if she makes eye contact, he holds up his other foot (i have two feet) ...then, if she's interested, she might show of her feet right back at him .... if she shows her feet and then  if she makes eye contact, he puffs up, struts, and makes noise ... it is amazing to me still that we saw this happen quite a few times in our visit to north seymour ... clearly there is a lot of failure in the courting right after this step ....

this boy booby is puffed up and working it for all he's got :

if after his noise and puffed upness, she makes eye contact, he walks around her for a bit and the make lots of  eye contact ... and lots of sky pointing from both of them.... then, after being near her and well received, he picks up a stick or a rock and gives it to her ....

 i read about this stick giving in a book before i went ....it is ritual nest building, even though they don't make nests anymore .... it is evolutionarily leftover from when they used to be nest builders, presumably ...red footed boobies still makes nests, so the assumption is that blue foots used to make nests, thought now they don't at all  ...

if the stick exchange goes well , the boy bird will take off and fly a small circle back around to the female, in theory, to show off his fine flying and landing skills .. the bird we saw do this, crash landed ... and that was that .... she made no more eye contact and the boy that had been waiting and watching on a rock close by, said hey, look at my foot, it's blue ....

we saw not mating ... only courtship and rejections ... but, they aren't that dumb, they really do mate eventually ... we saw evidence of it with this bird and its eggs ..... in that picture above, you can see an egg right under the blue foot ....

 blue footed boobies keep their eggs on or under their feet ... their feet are the perfect incubation temperature ... their warm feet keep the eggs warm .... all the stick giving during the courtship was just for show, because when the egg is layed, all the sticks and stones are moved away so that the egg just has dirt and feet touching it ....

at one point, while watching a blue footed booby boy being rejected, i squatted down to take a picture, and drew took  a picture of me .....  as soon as i got up, that blue footed booby walked up to me and showed me his left foot ...

 ack!! the blue footed booby is coming on to me ... my group had lots of chuckles over it ... it's your pants, your blue pants, it's like your blue!! ... oh no, it's her blue toe nail polish .. it likes her feet ... and then, accidentally, i promise, i made eye contact ... and that blue footed booby picked up its other foot .... everyone hooted and laughed .... that bird wanted me! eek!!

dumb bird, i will not make eye contact with you! i will not show you my feet, i will not sky point ... and you better not start strutting!