Woodland Walk October 2025
Red-footed booby (Sula sula)
This seabird is the smallest of at least six species of boobies. It is about two and a half feet long and has a wingspan of five feet. Unlike the blue-footed booby which makes deep dives into water to catch fish, it often catches flying fish in the air, as well as making shallow dives. All boobies immediately swallow the fish they catch, unlike other fishing birds which may carry the fish in their beaks.
It has a similar range to the blue-footed booby and is commonly seen in Hawaii and the Galapagos Islands. Other species of boobies nest on the ground, but red-footed boobies live in colonies and nest in trees, where they lay a single blue egg.
Both adults incubate the egg for just over six weeks. The chicks learn to fly around three months of age, but it will be another eight weeks before they are able to attempt long flights.
The red-footed booby comes in several plumages, white, brown, or mixed, but all sport bright red feet and have blue bills. Some males also display blue throat patches when trying to attract mates.
They will not nest on islands where the Galapagos hawk is found, even if conditions are otherwise favourable. If the hawks have been eradicated from an island, red-footed boobies have been observed moving in to colonise it.
Humans continue to hunt and eat both adults and chicks, even though it is illegal. The birds bite the hands of humans attempting to take them from their nests. Two or three thousand birds are killed in most years.
Coconut crabs hunt red-footed boobies, using their strong claws to break the birds’ wings or trap them by their legs.
Blue-footed booby (Sula nebouxii)
The blue-footed booby appeared on my screen recently, so I had to investigate it.
The name booby derives from bobo, the Spanish word for clown because, like many seabirds, the booby is ungainly on land. Bobo also means foolish, because the bird shows no fear of man, a potential threat.
It is found along the coast from California to Peru and especially in the Galapagos Islands. It comes ashore to mate, lay eggs and rear its young.
An adult booby is almost three feet long with a wingspan of five feet, and may live for seventeen years. The blue colouration of their feet is provided through their fishy diet and indicates their overall health. The brighter the colour, the healthier and stronger the bird.
Young birds have paler blue feet than adults and females have the most concentrated hue. The feet are important in the mating rituals. Males look for females with bright feet because they indicate youth. good health, and fertility. Females favour younger males, who have brighter feet. As birds age, so the colour of their feet fades.
The mating dance involves both sexes, the male displaying his feet with an exaggerated gait of wider and higher step, while male and female lift their beaks skywards and spread their wings.
After the clutch of two or three eggs is laid on bare ground, both parents take turns to incubate the eggs, using their feet to keep them warm.
There are three recognised collective nouns for boobies – a hatch, a trap, or a congress.
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the blue-footed booby as being of ‘least concern.’
Reminder
.jpeg)
We were congratulating ourselves on having a free diary this week, with no scheduled appointments, and then ‘ting’ a message appeared on Barry’s ‘phone. It was from Medivet, to remind us that Gilbert had a blood test scheduled for Tuesday afternoon at Parsons Green.
I checked my diary and Barry checked his – nothing! In any case, why Parsons Green? It is a residential area in Hammersmith and Fulham, thirty-nine miles from where we live. Two of the daughters live in London and have pets, but neither of them is anywhere near Parsons Green.
Sharyn was in Reception at our veterinary practice this morning and she was intrigued. She was able immediately to pinpoint when the appointment was made – about thirty seconds before the reminder dropped into Barry’s ‘phone! – and said she would contact the practice at Parsons Green. Would he like her to call him back? He thanked her and said that she was a busy person, and it wasn’t necessary. He was just concerned that there was a Gilbert ‘out there’ requiring a blood test, who might miss it.
We are curious, though, and would have loved clarification. Is Gilbert a dog, a hamster, a cockatoo, a snake? We’ll never know. We simply hope the message reached the right person eventually.
As ever, we were impressed by the efficiency of our veterinary practice. We know, from experience, that if it been a reminder from the NHS that we wanted to query or verify, we would have been passed from pillar to post. It would have taken most of the morning, speaking to oh-so-patient receptionists in various departments before someone somewhere would have been able to give us the answer.
So, we still have a clear week. Three cheers!
The Hub
We trotted off on Saturday afternoon to receive our jabs.
We had booked our appointments at The Hub, a community hall on a growing estate, not far from where we live. Buckler's Park is full of forbidding, unfriendly-looking houses.
We had each received further encouragement from the NHS to book our appointments – I had one, Barry had three! - alongside reminders to turn up for the ones we had booked.
The Hub Opened in Spring 2025, but the location has still not been picked up by TomTom. Although it is only around three minutes from our house by car, we drove round and round in circles ignoring TomTom as it tried to persuade us to travel to a village several miles away.
We asked a passerby if he knew where The Hub was, and he said, ‘You’re the third people who’ve asked me for directions this afternoon.’ It transpired that we were close to it. We had expected it to be quite quiet and therefore easy to find a parking space. We were wrong! It was packed.
The clinic, if such it could be called, was very efficiently organised. We were checked in at the door and then again at the jab station, of which there were several. My name was missing from the list despite the palaver we had gone through a couple of weeks previously and the assurance that everything was in order. The lady checking off names on her list added my details in pencil, alongside others whose names had been omitted.
Anyway, all is done, a stab in each arm and no ill effects.
I wonder how many reminders we will receive this week?
Sampler
I’m just finishing a cross-stitch sampler I started months ago to mark the birth of the youngest member of the family, Hailey, who was born in March. I started one, but it looked all wrong, so I abandoned it and began another. It doesn’t look too dreadful, and as I suspect it will be received with thanks and then ‘put away’ I’m not too bothered.
All I had left to stitch was the date. I’d counted all the squares and was just reaching the end when I realised I’d miscalculated and hadn’t centred it correctly. I couldn’t face unpicking it, so decided to improvise and add some flowers in the unplanned spaces.
Then I’ll wash it, mount it, and frame it. It’s the last birth sampler I’ll make. The next clutch of grandchildren doesn’t look ready to have babies yet, and cross-stitch isn’t quite their style anyway.
I enjoy cross-stitch, but I haven’t my mother’s skill with a needle, or her patience. Nobody will be bidding for my work in centuries to come!
Corduroy
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
Another long-held belief crumbled to dust recently when I looked up the origins of the word corduroy. It’s nothing to do with kings!
Wikipedia explains:
‘A common false etymology holds that the word "corduroy" derives from the French phrase corde du roi or the cord of the king. The word corduroy is from cord (i.e. rope) and duroy, which was a coarse woollen cloth made in England in the 18th century.
Corduroy is made by weaving extra sets of fibre into the base fabric to form vertical ridges called wales.’
There are different styles of corduroy material, ranging from standard to needlecord or pincord. Wide wale is used for furniture upholstery and trousers. Finer cord is used in garments like shirts, or dresses.
Corduroy has been in use since the 18th century and became much more popular in the mid to late 20th century. Although it is associated with country clothing, it was originally worn by people living and working in industrial towns.
In parts of Europe it is known as ‘Manchester.’
I started thinking about corduroy because Barry was considering buying new cords. He has a habit of jumping subjects and suddenly we were discussing corduroy roads, as he had been reading about the Eastern Front. Corduroy roads were crucial between 1941 and 1944, when troops met ground that had become impassable as a result of appalling weather conditions.
.jpg)
The name, ‘corduroy road’ came into existence in the late eighteenth century in the USA, because it loosely resembled corduroy material.
A corduroy road is a basic road created with logs laid over boggy ground at right angles to the track that is to be traversed. It makes forward progress possible, although it is rough and not easy to travel along. It provides a surface that is difficult, though not impossible, for wheeled and horse-drawn vehicles to use.
Excavation of a corduroy road from the 16th century, Oranienburg, Germany
Image courtesy Wikimedia CommonsThe earliest record of a corduroy road was in 1071 in England, as the Normans worked to defeat Hereward the Wake, on the Isle of Ely.
An adaptation of the corduroy road was the plank road, which used sawn planks instead of logs. These presented a smoother surface.
