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Birdwatching is much more satisfying in the Galápagos than on the mainland, because you do not have to be an expert or avid aficionado to identify most species and observe their behavior.
Sea birds are one of the simplest and most interesting groups for novice naturalists in the Galápagos, because they are abundant, active, and unafraid. Not to mention that sea birds—for their odd yet beautiful appearance—are the islands' most photographed and reproduced creatures.
•  The Blue-Footed Booby is the most notorious creature in the Galápagos due to its bright blue feet and highly entertaining behavior. Males perform an elaborate mating dance with distinctive waddling, stomping, posing, and flapping movements, all accompanied by a love-offering of sticks and twigs.
• The Red-Footed Booby has red feet, blue-gray bill, pinkish facial skin, and brown outer plumage. Courtship among blue-footed boobies is akin to the blue-footed variety, but it is performed in trees.
• The Nazca Booby , formerly known as the masked booby, is distinguished from its booby brothers by its alabaster white feathers, black wing stripe, and black skin at the base of the bill resembling a Zorro mask.
• Frigatebirds receive their fame from the males' ability to inflate their red guttural flaps to football-sized balloons as their method of attracting females. Frigatebirds are also considered kleptoparasites or pirates, since they steal food from other birds or force them to regurgitate it.
• The Waved Albatross is the largest bird that breeds in Galápagos. Watching its massive body take flight or completing its courtship display—complete with pair dancing, rhythmic nodding and bill clacking, and ‘mooing' in unison—is a truly unforgettable Galápagos experience.
• The Flightless Cormorant is unmistakably recognized by the stubby vestigial appendages that serve as non-functional wings.
• The endemic Galápagos Penguin is the only species of penguin found north of the equatorial line that breeds in the tropics. At only 35cm tall, the Galápagos penguin is also one of the world's smallest penguins.
• The Greater Flamingo is a strange, pink, Caribbean-based bird that makes artistic mud-designs in lagoons throughout the archipelago. The male performs its courting ritual—a sensual, flamenco-like dance—in July and August.
Although there are fewer species of land birds than sea birds in the Galápagos, they are much more difficult to identify, since almost all of them are small and dull. As if to overcompensate for being color-challenged, these birds have a brilliant personality, reacting to humans with nonchalance, curiosity, or even pestering.
• The thirteen species of Darwin's Finches that are found in the Galápagos are perhaps the most famous land birds on the islands, given the ecological significance of differences in species' beak morphology and their links to feeding behavior. Although they all originated from a single ancestor, individual species have formed as niche specialists, eating seeds, leaves, cactus, or insects. One species, the “vampire finch,” drinks the blood of sea birds. Three other finch species specialize in eating the ticks and mites off of reptiles. There are even two species—the woodpecker and mangrove finches—that use twigs or spines as primitive tools to extract hidden insect larvae or grubs from holes in trees or branches.
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