Booby dance
Blue feet.
kuhnmi — CC BY 2.0 · kuhnmi — CC BY 2.0 · David Adam Kess — CC BY-SA 3.0 · C T Johansson — CC BY-SA 3.0
A small, flat island of about two square kilometres, raised from the seabed and covered in low scrub and silvery palo santo trees. It is one of the easiest places to see the famous Galápagos birds at very close range. Visitors walk a trail of about two kilometres among nesting blue-footed boobies, watching the comic courtship dance in which the male lifts his blue feet in turn. The archipelago's largest frigatebird colonies nest here, and in the breeding season males puff out a red throat pouch like a balloon. Swallow-tailed gulls sit on the rocks, sea lions lie on the shore, and yellow land iguanas live inland. Waves break along the black rocky coast. It can only be visited by licensed boat with a national park guide, and operators price the trips. Trips leave Santa Cruz via the Itabaca channel, close to the airport. Keep at least two metres from the animals, and never touch or feed them.
Blue feet.
Red pouches.
Yellow and large.
North of Baltra Island, near the Galápagos airport
In the breeding season, when males inflate them to attract females; the birds are on the island all year.