Okay, But... Birds

Okay, but... boobies!

June 4, 2026·34 min
Episode Description from the Publisher

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 outWhat 20 years of GPS loggers, depth tags, and bags of fresh fish revealed about who eats whatWhy El Niño, avian flu, and overfishing keep stacking the deck against these birdsAll 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, ML85906Red-footed Booby audio contributed by Robert I. Bowman, ML85911Brown Booby audio contributed by Gerritt Vyn, ML136211Masked Booby audio contributed by Chandler Robbins, ML32604Nazca Booby audio contributed by Oliver H. Hewitt, ML31543Peruvian Booby audio contributed by Ted Parker, ML29399

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