Jackie Lay
Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR’s international correspondents share snapshots of moments from their lives and work around the world.
I admit I am obsessed with the blue-footed booby. I saw the turquoise-accented avian for the first time on my recent reporting trip to the Galápagos — the Pacific volcanic islands some 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, and home to many of the world’s blue-footed booby breeding couples.
I get why nearly two centuries ago, Charles Darwin was fascinated by these seabirds and gave them top billing in his theory of evolution. I couldn’t get enough — equally amused at their gangly gait on land (their name comes from the Spanish bobo for “foolish”) while also awed by their precision diving skills at sea. I confess I was equally enamored by their ubiquitous caricatures plastered around Galápagos towns, adorning walls and signposts and all kinds of booby-themed kitsch.
My NPR colleague Aya Batrawy, based in Dubai, summed it up best after seeing a video I’d 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.”
See more photos from around the world:
- Greetings from Afrin, Syria, where Kurds danced their hearts out to celebrate spring
- Greetings from Dharamshala, India, where these Tibetan kids were having the best time
- Far from the front lines, Ukrainians fight a war to preserve their culture
- As Greenland prepares for tourism increase, a moment of stillness among the icebergs
- After nearly 50 years cooped up inside, Rockalina the turtle finds the great outdoors
