Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly collection through which NPR’s worldwide correspondents share snapshots of moments from their lives and work around the globe.
I admit I’m obsessive about the blue-footed booby. I noticed the turquoise-accented avian for the primary time on my current reporting journey to the Galápagos — the Pacific volcanic islands some 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, and residential to most of the world’s blue-footed booby breeding {couples}.
I get why almost two centuries in the past, Charles Darwin was fascinated by these seabirds and gave them prime billing in his concept of evolution. I could not get sufficient — equally amused at their gangly gait on land (their title comes from the Spanish bobo for “foolish”) whereas additionally awed by their precision diving abilities at sea. I confess I used to be equally enamored by their ubiquitous caricatures plastered round Galápagos cities, adorning partitions and signposts and every kind of booby-themed kitsch.
My NPR colleague Aya Batrawy, primarily based in Dubai, summed it up finest after seeing a video I would shared of a booby in clear focus, its neck twisted in a 180-degree pose, preening its rear cinnamon-brown and white-streaked feathers. “Now that’s life,” she remarked, “to be born with perfect footwear and the ability to scratch your own back.”
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