# Galapagos Non-Pigeons



## paws (Jul 6, 2006)

The “Soggy Nest Saga” seems to have hibernated for the winter, but that doesn’t mean I can’t contribute virtually unrelated stuff to the forum, does it? I sort of thought it did, but was urged to contribute these Galapagos photos by someone who either (a) wanted to add some color (perhaps blue) to the board, or (b) wanted to get me banned.

So I thought I’d gamble and do the posts. I did compromise by limiting myself to things with wings, no matter how pathetic they might be. For example, the photo of the inside of a sea lion’s mouth was probably out of the question, as were the exploding volcano ones, although one could argue that both could have a major impact on something with wings, if it were dumb enough not to take a hint.

But there _are_ vast reserves of stupidity in those islands. Darwin seems to have really focused on the finches, who may have cornered the market on intelligence there. He noted that they evolved specialized beaks, etc., unique to their particular environment. Had he stopped to wonder about the birds with the silly blue feet he might have been somewhat less than impressed with natural selection. To make up for this slight, I’ll begin with the Blue Footed Boobie.

This wonder of evolution looks as smart as it is. To clarify, this bird has a mating ritual that would fit well in a Broadway musical – wings tucked behind, beak in the air, sticking its feet out 45 degrees and honking away, and it carefully collects nesting materials only to toss them out and lay eggs on the bare ground, resting them on its feet for warmth. In other words, even a drooling idiot looks pretty sharp standing beside a Blue Foot, which is why I want to return to the Galapagos as soon as possible.

They fish by slamming head first into the water at about Mach 2 and spend a lot of time standing on guano-encrusted rocks preening, watching for fish, and generally killing time waiting for the aspirin to kick in. In evolution’s defense, they have developed, like many seabirds, air sacs that cushion their brains on impact, but I fear that they therefore now have air taking up valuable real estate, e.g., the nest building subdivision.


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## paws (Jul 6, 2006)

*The Nazca Model*

The Nazca Boobie used to be called the Masked Boobie until some researcher with a microscope and way too much time on his hands realized that one of their chromosomes was a little different. Since “_Not Really a Masked Boobie_” may already have been taken, they opted for “Nazca” creating a bird name that sounds more like a free trade agreement. Actually, it is named after the Nazca tectonic plate, etc., kind of like Spanish explorer Juan de Fuca was named after the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate. One of the few things whiter than the guano-encrusted rocks, the Nazca shows that you can get out virtually any stain if you smash into the water at supersonic speeds enough. Wash, rinse, repeat…

On a darker note, the young perform siblicide, where the elder of the two young ejects the sibling from the nest. This is what I feared Little Boy was trying to do to Fat Man in the Soggy Nest debacle last summer when in fact he was really either just trying to stay warm or get a serious hernia.


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## paws (Jul 6, 2006)

*The Flightless Cormorant*

From the “Paying for One’s Ancestors’ Errors” department comes the Galapagos Cormorant. Cormorants are supposed to be flying birds that occasionally smash head first in to the water. The ones in the Galapagos gave up the flying part, like penguins, ostriches, etc. In the case of the ostrich, this was a good thing, at least for those of us who don’t own umbrellas. For the cormorant, I’m not sure. Would you rather:

(a) Waft effortlessly on the tropical thermals, marveling at the beauty of nature below, or…

(b) …swim in unnaturally cold waters and crawl out to stand as an embarrassing monument to your ancestors’ stupidity, desperately trying to dry your pathetic wings before hypothermia sets in?

But I must say they do swim well underwater. I took a video of one darting around and looking under rocks (Food? Long underwear?). Wonderful blue eyes, too.


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## paws (Jul 6, 2006)

*Frigate Bird: Pirate of the Sky, Shame of Males*

If the Blue Foot’s mating dance is funny, this is outright embarrassing. Guys will go to great lengths to attract women, e.g., faking love of sitar music in the ‘60’s, wearing leisure suits in the ‘70’s, insider trading in the 80’s, being President in the ‘90’s, but this is, well, ridiculous. Even Junior, in the background, looks a little dubious, and is wondering if it’s too late to stock up on Ravi Shankar 8-tracks.


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## paws (Jul 6, 2006)

*But all isn't horrible*

But on to better things: There were a lot of young ‘uns around, but the cuteness award has to go to the gull and chick:


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## paws (Jul 6, 2006)

*Required Viewing*

And finally, the Vermillion Flycatcher. No, there is nothing of great note here, it’s just that, in the ultimate proof of evolution, this thing has developed the ability to know exactly when a chunky tourist is about to click the shutter, and moves to the next bush a quarter second before. This is good for laughs, reducing stress levels, no doubt allowing for a longer, more satisfying life, especially if the porcine tourist is not heavily armed. I followed the little b**tard through four bushes, so, by God, you’re going to look at the ****ed picture, OK?


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## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

Hi Jim,

I really enjoyed your pictures, quite educational, and appreciate your grand sense of humor. The birds are all so beautiful. Yes, the cuteness award definitely went to the correct candidates.

You are definitely RIGHT ON TOPIC, as you have not only correctly posted in the "other birds" forum but also correctly in the sharing pictures and stories forum!

Thank you for these great pics and sharing your adventures with us, NICE change of pace.


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## Reti (Jul 20, 2003)

Thank you for the great pics of those awsome birds. The stories are great. I really enjoyed this thread.

Reti


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## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

Great posts and great photographs, more than worthy of publication...how about forwarding them to an agent?

I found it even more entertaining than the Bad Birdwatchers Companion by Simon Barnes which is one of my favourite books and the illustrations are so much better too...http://www.birdforumbooks.com/info/218-A-Bad-Birdwatchers-Companion-A-Personal-Introductionto-Britains-Most-Obvious-Birds.htm (My favourite line in that book is something like "never trust a man who says he doesn't like Canada Geese" ).

Cynthia


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## Lin Hansen (Jan 9, 2004)

Paws,

This is great!

Glad you decided to post these "non-pigeon" items....

Love the beautiful pictures and the colorful commentary!

Linda


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## jazaroo (Jan 1, 2006)

Yes, thanks for sharing, the photos are beautiful.

Ron


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## mr squeaks (Apr 14, 2005)

Might as well come clean! I AM THE ONE who encouraged Jim to post about those birds!

He exceeded my wildest expectations - I laughed so hard that I had to take time out to breathe, wipe eyes and relax stomach muscles!

THANKS, Jim! The Galapagos is such a fascinating area and those birds are something else! The bird tour was terrific! If you have any more of 'em...well...

BTW (hint, hint) how is your "cave" building coming along??

Also, I am afraid the world will not be privy to Jim's humor and stories. I'm pretty sure he's not interested in being published, SO, WE have exclusive RIGHTS!


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

Beautiful pictures of the birds on the Island, and some pretty interesting commentaries here.  . Loved them all, but that Blue Footed Boobie really caught my interest visually along w/their nesting habits. I suppose that they are always just hoping that they will find something better than their very own feet for nesting material. But when it comes right down to it, they're warm (?) and pretty too  ....why waste any more time than what's already being devoted to the aspirin?

fp


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## Maggie-NC (Jun 22, 2005)

Jim, I enjoyed all the pictures and the narratives that went with them. Will have to disagree with the cuteness award. That baby frigate watching papa was the cutest. The cormorant was really interesting. I was amazed at, like you mentioned, how pathetic his wings were. Are the cormorants on Galapagos the only ones that don't fly? 

Personally, I would love to see all your pictures, even if they're not birds. These were terrific.


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## TerriB (Nov 16, 2003)

Jim, thanks for sharing your great photos and commentaries!


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## paws (Jul 6, 2006)

*Boobies, Books*

I’m going to divide this up into chunks as I did before to keep the photos with the text. I haven’t figured the photo thing out completely – it seems like sometimes they are displayed, sometimes they are just hyperlinks. The latter is a bit disturbing as I noted that one of my shots was named “_Nazca neck not stretched_,” which might imply that I was wandering about stretching boobie’s necks. Nothing could be farther from the truth: I haven’t done that since my giraffe and ostrich hobby years ago. I even have the companion photo, “_Nazca neck stretched_” which clearly shows the bird stretching its neck. I would post it, but I’m sort of busy PhotoShopping my hands out of it.

I followed the link to learn about the Bad Birdwatcher’s Companion book. It sounded right up my line: Let’s keep things simple. The problem is that I’m leery of returning to the U.K. for a while after my visit to the old homestead a couple years ago. Already in London, I decided to see my first home, so took the Tube/train/bus/sidewalk there. A beautiful, quiet neighborhood. Way too quiet for a stranger (it had been about half a century since I lived there… “Oh! Jimmy! We almost didn’t recognize you without your diapers and pacifier!”) to stop in, look around, take some photos, and flee without being noticed. Thank goodness this was before the subway/bus bombings.

“Why, yes, officer, I remember him! Saw him get on the 493 bus! If you ask me, he looked up to no good. Looked like the sort that would stretch boobies necks, he did!”

Okay, enough digression from a digression. The Blue Foot’s nesting (or lack thereof) is actually believed to be an improvement on conventional nesting. As feralpigeon suggested, their feet are warm - heated by a mesh of blood vessels, so this is nature’s version of in-floor radiant heat. They simply raise or lower their bodies to adjust the thermostat. The procurement of nesting material is apparently a throwback from before they figured this out. Besides – everyone else is doing it!

As far as the cuteness award goes, you have to see The Rest of the Story. Yeah, the little puffball of a frigate chick looked cute, but they go through a pretty hideous phase early on:


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## paws (Jul 6, 2006)

*Most Improved: The Gooney Bird!*

But the “Most Improved” award has to go to the albatross. Their young, properly resized, would look perfect in a medieval dragon movie – long beak, weird stuff sticking out everywhere, etc. Just add fire. But they then grow into gorgeous adults, adults who should really just stand very still, because any attempt at flight almost inevitably leads to comedy clips on nature shows as they spread their eight foot (2.5 m) wings and sprint into the wind on comically large feet at the end of disproportionately short legs. “Sprint” is probably not the right word here. Their landings aren’t much easier, often resembling the video of the DC10 crashing in Sioux City, Iowa (airport identifier: SUX – really!), but without the fire trucks standing by. This might explain why they spend about three quarters of their lives at sea – they’re waiting for the wildlife photographers to leave.

Even once safely on the ground, the humiliation doesn’t end. Their mating ritual includes a touching part where the loving couple beat each other’s beaks so fast that it sounds like an air wrench changing a tire. A little puzzling as they mate for life – back in the’70’s guys could burn their leisure suits when they got married.


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## paws (Jul 6, 2006)

*Cormorant Update*

Maybe the cormorants watched one albatross landing too many and swore off flying. As far as I know, the Galapagos ones are the only flightless ones. They also have, I think, the only marine iguanas. Of all the idiotic places for a cold-blooded reptile to learn to swim, this has to be near the top. The water is, as I mentioned, pretty cold (a southern current piles the cold, deep water upwards, providing much of the food that is key to the diversity there), so the poor things go in for a dip and a seaweed snack, then have to climb out and sunbathe for hours to restore their temperature. At least the cormorant is warm blooded – they’re just drying off! There would be dozens of iguanas in an area, some stacked atop others, all facing the sun.

Incidentally, they also have conventional land iguanas there and ever so rarely they interbreed. I wonder about the progeny: What if they get the “I think I can swim” gene without the actual swimming gene?

But back to the cormorant. I took a couple stills from the video I shot of the one underwater. They are a little hard to interpret. The first shows him swimming towards the bottom of the photo, peering over a rock he is passing. Something apparently caught his eye there, as he then performed a half-somersault and tried to stuff himself, headfirst and upside down, under the rock. The second photo shows a cormorant butt and two big webbed feet. I wonder if he ever got stuck. I suppose it only happens once.

He really moved underwater, like an avian torpedo. I don’t think they have developed penguin-quality lungs, so their dives are much shorter. Plus they have to factor in the response time of the tow-truck.


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## paws (Jul 6, 2006)

*And speaking of flying underwater…*

The sea lions seemed to genuinely like humans, and not as part of their food chain. First one would show up, then more, as they came from wherever sea lions hang out to play with us. They would do high speed runs, turning downwards at the very last second. I have a lot of photos of sea lions’ tails to prove it, too. They swam upside down a lot – maybe they could turn quicker that way. Sadly, like everything else in the Galapagos, it was a “look – don’t touch” thing, so one had to resist the temptation to grab one and give it a noogie or something. I felt sort of bad – these guys wanted to play!

But there is always someone who takes matters into his own hands or mouth. I was among the rocks, trying to get a photo of a Galapagos Fur Seal (really another sea lion – it was a marketing ploy), when something briefly grabbed my shoulder. I assumed it was one of my boat mates, but looked back and saw this really guilty looking sea lion. This thing had had it with us no-fun losers! I got bit on my shoulder, my head, my hands, my swim fins, and, in front of all my boat mates, my butt! He would attend to others, as well, but I was by far his favorite, although admittedly, I had a lot more square feet of surface area than anyone else. We’re Number One! We’re Number One!

Okay, enough bragging. The thing is that he was actually trying to play. Even when he bit my hands - my only un-armored parts (no gloves so I could use the camera) - he didn’t leave a mark – and these guys can snap fish in half! He was like a playful puppy, grabbing fins and shaking them! Admittedly, this was the one time one could play back – who could tell if the sea lion was doing the shaking, or the person?


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## paws (Jul 6, 2006)

*The final indignity*

He even bit my camera! To interpret the photo: He’s upside down. The yellow things at the top and bottom right are his teeth (Dude! Get some toothpaste!). The pink thing at the top right is his tongue, assuming sea lions have tongues. His whiskers are to the left. That might be an ear sticking out in the dead center of the shot.


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## paws (Jul 6, 2006)

*The housing status report*

Okay, by special request, on to the “Cave”. While I suspect that the reason people want to hear about this is to make their home life seem better, even if they are living in a refrigerator box under an overpass, I will oblige.

I’m still living in a cr*ppy travel trailer, but now I have an electrical system that can't be unplugged by a passing moose. Basically, my entire homestead was powered off a single long extension cord running up the hill to my meter. It was a hefty cord, though - eight gauge, about four times the size of a normal cord - but I still had to watch my electric usage since the breaker was only 25 amps. I only had to do the climb once. I had a space heater, the water heater, and a couple 500 watt exterior lights on. Things got very dark. My normal policy was only one big draw on at a time. Breakfast was a carefully orchestrated event: Get out of bed. Turn off the space heater. Turn on the water heater. Wait 15 minutes. Turn off the water heater. Microwave the sausages. Turn on the space heater. Enjoy!

I hesitate to estimate the total number of outlets I had running off that cord for fear of Homeland Security reporting me to Underwriter's Laboratories, so let's just say in excess of the equivalent of forty duplex receptacles. The good news is that the vast majority of them were adequately protected by circuit breakers, some of which I didn't even know existed. If you plug a couple five hundred watt lights, a few hundred watts' worth of heat tape, and a sizable air compressor into one of those light duty power strips, you find that the meddling b*stards who built the strip put in a breaker for entertainment purposes. So suddenly you're standing in the dark, precariously perched on a small platform a dozen feet above the concrete, holding a pneumatic nailer that can put a three and a half inch nail though solid wood with the flick of a finger.

But I'm now the proud owner of a fantastically expensive electrical panel and some equally extravagant, ridiculously thick wire to run from the meter to the building. We're talking several dollars a foot here, and, since one certainly doesn't want to have to splice this stuff, one doesn't want to come up short. I did not. I'm not sure what safety factor I used, but when I was done running it there must have been twenty feet of the stuff sticking through the wall, and the panel is within inches of the entry hole. I'd guess I have at least sixty dollars' worth of excess wire.

Now the upstairs has lights and outlets (and real stairs! No more two story ladder! Whee!), so I’m slowly migrating stuff up there. So much stuff, in fact, that the truck is half empty, being reduced from the TV room/computer room/exercise room/workshop/storage room to just the exercise cycle closet. Why “closet”? Because it shrank to half its original size. For only the second time in three years (the first was a couple years ago when I drove it onto the slab) it has reverted to a normal (well, normal for a ten ton military vehicle) size. I cranked the walls in and found (a) a lot more space in the shop, and (b) that you should probably do this more than once every two years – I almost needed power tools to get it collapsed. At least I now can have a hobby: Taking that thing apart and lubricating the daylights out of it. Incredibly, given the army’s love of daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, etc., maintenance, there is no provision to grease the extension/retraction mechanisms – this on a truck that has over fifty grease fittings that are supposed to be lubed monthly.

After three years of the good life in there, it seems awfully small. More exactly, skinny: Seven feet wide by seventeen feet long. It’s like riding an exercise bike in a tunnel, but with fewer really irritated drivers.

My hope for this winter is to have a very rudimentary “cocoon” to live in upstairs, a little less than half the length of the building, the remainder being the workshop area. This will get me out of the trailer, a good thing since I removed the insulated skirting last spring (“No way I’ll be in this thing for another winter!”) and new and exciting things are freezing. The Water Gods, whom I apparently gravely insulted in a previous life, recently threw another curve: “Let him have the water – just don’t take it back!” So all my drains froze. At one point the only way to get rid of water was the toilet. I long ago learned that forty gallons of frozen poo has little recreational appeal, so I have my waterbed heater (yes, I used to lie on a waterbed faking a love of sitar music) under the “blackwater” (lovely euphemism) tank.

Probably enough on that matter.

Probably enough, period.

Jim


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## Maggie-NC (Jun 22, 2005)

Jim, your threads are wonderful. I can almost "see" the playful sea lion nipping at you. Did you see the famous turtles? 

Glad to hear the living conditions are improving for you but with your attitude you could probably enjoy the "cardboard box under the overpass". 

I hope you don't get tired of sharing your experiences with us. I am such a homebody that I rarely get to see anything other than NC so I enjoy hearing about other peoples adventures.


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## Lin Hansen (Jan 9, 2004)

paws said:


> I still had to watch my electric usage since the breaker was only 25 amps. I only had to do the climb once. I had a space heater, the water heater, and a couple 500 watt exterior lights on. Things got very dark. My normal policy was only one big draw on at a time. Breakfast was a carefully orchestrated event: Get out of bed. Turn off the space heater. Turn on the water heater. Wait 15 minutes. Turn off the water heater. Microwave the sausages. Turn on the space heater. Enjoy!
> Jim


Jim, I enjoyed reading your update of conditions at the ol' homestead, but I could especially relate to your statement above.

Our home is about 100 yrs old...we bought it in 1980, and there had been no improvements done of any kind since 1935! I believe our electric panel could handle 15 amps!!! My husband knows about such things, but at that time I had no clue. The first morning after we moved in, I made the huge mistake of starting the coffemaker (Mr. Coffee, back in those days) and then going to dry my hair with my hair dryer. Kerblooey! Blew out the entire circuit panel!

So, even though my old house was the lap of luxury compared to how you are roughing it, I understand about having to think carefully and plan out which appliances you can use at a time!

Good luck with the renovations....hope they go quick and easy for you (although, believe me, I know they never do! lol)

Thanks for the update.

Linda


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## Feather (Dec 8, 2005)

Your pictures are breathtaking, and your adventures are amazing.

Feather


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## paws (Jul 6, 2006)

*Ancient Housing, Ancient Animals*

Lin Hansen - I lived in a similar setup in the late ‘70’s, a house on a university research farm. I don’t think it was 100 years old, but was certainly built before they had electricity in that rural area, so the wiring had to be added later. They got lights in all the rooms, but no wall switches. Each light had a wire hanging down from it with a table-lamp style switch at the end, so in the dark you had to wander around the middle of the room doing a helicopter imitation until your rotor hit it. If you were not alone, it was important that only one person did this. Ultimately I managed to wire in little neon pilot lights and thought I was living the luxury life!

The heating system was also a retrofit. The layout started out perfectly symmetrical, four rooms on each floor in a box pattern, each one the same rectangular size. At their common point, in the middle of the building, there was a square chimney twisted 45 degrees, so each room had a tiny flat area in that corner, where the individual wood or coal stoves had been vented.

This was a great concept until someone got uppity and installed that fancy indoor plumbing stuff, which, if you ask me, is just asking for trouble in the winter. So they took a little out of each of the upstairs front rooms and made a bathroom, depriving those rooms of access to the chimney, although I bet you could get really toasty in the bathroom with two stoves.

But apparently around that time (the timeline is vague) they really went all out and got central heating. In this case central heating was a massive coal furnace in the basement with a scarily large grate above it in the living room (the two front rooms combined), and a much smaller grate in the bathroom directly above. The wonder of convection did the rest and, speaking from someone who slept in a back bedroom, it didn’t do it very well. On the brighter side, they had converted the furnace to oil, so I could just crank it wide open without having to dart up and downstairs every couple hours.

The best I can recall of the electric panel was two of those screw in glass fuses – the ones you can supposedly bypass with copper pennies. They never blew, so either they got that part of the design right, or I know where you can pick up a couple cents.

Actually, some of the scariest wiring I’ve seen that I wasn’t involved in was in my truck, which was built at the end of the Eisenhower administration. They used that nasty rubber insulation that cracks apart when touched five decades later and they didn’t know what a “ground” was, but really stepped up to the plate with a circuit breaker panel featuring something called “Pushmatic” breakers. The Underwriters’ Laboratory might have signed off on those, but only because it was the height of the Cold War and if this thing could keep them safe from nuclear attack, any risk was worth it, as long as they were past military age and hence very unlikely to ever be near it again.

I, ever the cautious one, replaced the wires but kept the dozen Pushmatics to be historically accurate. Sort of like the Chicago fire.

And finally, yes, we saw lots of sea turtles and tortoises. The former were a study in grace as they flew smoothly about, legs slowly beating. What the tortoises gave up in grace, they made up for in lawn mowing ability.

Jim


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## mr squeaks (Apr 14, 2005)

I KNEW, I JUST KNEW...I should NOT have read the latest postings here - FIRST! Now, I have to WAIT until I can SEE again before playing catchup on the rest of the site!

I LOVE my life...have NO IDEA WHY I AM LAUGHING SO MUCH! Maybe unknown stress??? Well, it's sure gone now!!

Thanks again, Jim...who needs to travel with your commentaries? I'm with Maggie, CARRY ON!!


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