Okay, but... boobies!

E25. The blue-footed booby has become an internet personality: cartoon feet, a goofy strut, a name that practically begs to be a punchline. But Scott sat down with Dr. Carlos Zavalaga, Universidad Científica del Sur, and one of the people who first taught him how to study seabirds in Peru, and the "fool" reputation falls apart fast. Get a booby in the air or underwater and you're watching one of the most specialized hunters in the bird family tree.

In this episode you'll hear about:

How six-plus booby species carve up the same ocean without starving each other out
What 20 years of GPS loggers, depth tags, and bags of fresh fish revealed about who eats what
Why El Niño, avian flu, and overfishing keep stacking the deck against these birds

All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:

Blue-footed Booby audio contributed by Robert I. Bowman, ML85906
Red-footed Booby audio contributed by Robert I. Bowman, ML85911
Brown Booby audio contributed by Gerritt Vyn, ML136211
Masked Booby audio contributed by Chandler Robbins, ML32604
Nazca Booby audio contributed by Oliver H. Hewitt, ML31543
Peruvian Booby audio contributed by Ted Parker, ML29399

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Avsnitt(26)

Okay, but what about birds that can't fly?

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Okay, but can a bird really cooperate with humans?

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Okay, but can birds predict the weather?

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Okay, but can birds smell?

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Okay, but what can we learn from a drawer of birds?

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Okay, but are bird feeders helping or hurting?

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16 Apr 32min

Okay, but what's in a bird's toolbox?

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9 Apr 32min