The Clark Family's Amazing Adventures

I was late for lunch yesterday after a long session in front of the computer. I grabbed a taxi (you have to love the $1 to anywhere in town) and dashed down to the Malecon for lunch to be met by a very excited Zoe who dragged me to the beach,  “Dad, boobies, you have to come and see the boobies! Boobies!”.

The Galapagos is full of surprising creatures, many of which are found nowhere else on the planet. Or I could just say they are ‘endemic’ to the Galapagos which means the same thing but I may not have been the only one who didn’t pay attention in Biology classes at school? I still feel sorry for our new and very enthusiastic teacher, so young he looked like a sixth former, we were not an easy class! I went back a few years later and there were still little bits of dried jelly on the ceiling but that’s another story.

We had been looking forward to seeing our first boobies perhaps on another island and were shocked when after mentioning this to another volunteer at lunch he pointed to the harbour wall and showed us where they had been hiding, right under our noses.

Blue Footed Boobie, San Cristobal

Only about 20,000 pairs exist, not many in planetary terms. Will our grandchildren get to see them? I hope so.What makes them stand out are their blue feet which are used for courtship, they flap them up and down to woo mates.

Great for courting other birds, just hope they like blue

At 80cm (2.5ft) long and with a wingspan of 150cm (5ft) they are pretty big birds.

OK so I trod in some paint, no need to stare…

There are also Red Footed Boobies which we hope to see on another island. If Red and Blue Footed mate do they get purple feet?

Can one of you volunteers clean my rock please?

The females have dark eye liner to make their pupils look bigger just like Homo Sapiens.

The cute pair of Boobies you’ve all been waiting for