[Leica] Why are these birds called boobies?

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

Between their wobbly gait on land and wide-eyed look, they do look 
silly. On the other hand, as Doug mentioned they are amazing flyers. 
The only fly in the ointment with the latter is that they live 
together with frigate birds. Frigate birds, and especially the 
Magnificent Frigate birds which are common on the Galapagos can do 
aerial maneuvers that are hard to believe; they have the highest 
wingspan to body weight ratio of any bird. They harass boobies and 
tropicbirds until those drop the fish they just caught, and then the 
frigate birds catch the fish before they hit the water. They also rob 
each other, especially when a large heavy fish is the prize. Frigate 
birds are like cormorants and anhingas; they don't have water 
resistant feathers. They only dip into the water while airborne.

The boobies are also fantastic divers and swimmers. They might spy a 
fish from 150ft. up, fold up into an arrow shape (their beak and head 
work well for that) and dive straight into the water. They can easily 
go down 40ft underwater, and swim after fish and catch them, with a 
number of direction changes. The closely related gannets are similar.

It's quite an experience to be snorkeling and have some of these blue 
footed, red footed and masked boobies dive down next to you hitting 
the water at high speed and see them darting after fish. One can only 
hope their aim is good.



At 10:14 PM +0100 5/5/09, Peter Dzwig wrote:
>The term booby still exists in (UK) english, although these days it would be
>regarded as antiquated (like, for example, "popinjay". My 197x CHambers
>Dictionary gives: " A lubberly lout; a stupid fellow; a boy at the 
>bottom of his
>class; a sea bird of the gannet tribe, absurdly easy to catch". I believe 
>that
>the name was given to the bird by the Spaniards because it was 
>clumsy ("stupid")
>on land and hence easy to catch.
>
>Peter Dzwig
>
>Tina Manley wrote:
>>  At 02:32 PM 5/5/2009, you wrote:
>>>  No, it's not sharp. But he didn't pose for any length of time.
>>>
>>>  
>>> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hwulff/various/N-SA00-090430096.jpg.html
>>
>>
>>  Hilarious - and perfectly illustrates the name.
>>
>>  From Wiki:  The name "booby" comes from the Spanish term bobo, which
>>  means "Stupid" or "Fool"/"Clown". This is because the Blue-footed Booby
>>  is clumsy on the land. Like other seabirds, they can be very
>>  tame.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-footed_Booby#cite_note-0>[1]
>>
>>  Tina
>>
>>  Tina Manley
>>  www.tinamanley.com


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    *            Henning J. Wulff
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