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Female Nazca booby with one chick & an egg. This species has asynchronous hatching & typically the larger chick receives all of the care & food & the younger starves.
Isla Genovesa, Galapagos
Spotted on Dec 18, 2012
Submitted on Dec 18, 2012
4 Comments
Me too Alice. The second egg seems to be an insurance policy in case anything happens to the first chick. We were told that researchers had conducted studies where the 2nd chick was replaced in the nest each time the first pushed it out, & the older chick independently fed while the parents were off the nest so that it would be less demanding of food from them. In these experiments the parents successfully raised both chicks.
I like your pictures, but I wish the 2nd egg had more of a chance to survive.
I've added it Ava>
Karen, since she's sitting on a carefully made scrape nest, can you please add this to the Animal Architecture mission?