{"id":42945,"date":"2024-10-17T15:58:56","date_gmt":"2024-10-17T13:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/3e3c2932-d781-4485-8012-2d07567bbbfb"},"modified":"2024-10-17T16:27:27","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T14:27:27","slug":"vampire-finch-how-this-blood-thirsty-bird-rules-the-roost-on-a-remote-outpost-of-the-galapagos-islands","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/rss_feed\/vampire-finch-how-this-blood-thirsty-bird-rules-the-roost-on-a-remote-outpost-of-the-galapagos-islands\/","title":{"rendered":"Vampire finch: how this blood-thirsty bird rules the roost on a remote outpost of the Gal\u00e1pagos Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"

The tiny bird lives on Wolf and Darwin Islands, the most far-flung of the Gal\u00e1pagos Islands. <\/p>

By <\/p>

Published: Thursday, 17 October 2024 at 13:58 PM<\/p>

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Gal\u00e1pagos finches are famous for their beaks. Years of evolution have specialised their schnozzes for different purposes \u2013 the formidable bill of the large ground finch cracks nuts, the woodpecker finch\u2019s tapered beak drills into trees, and so on.<\/strong><\/p>

And what of the elegantly curved, sharply pointed beak of the vampire finch? Well.<\/p>

Vampire ground finches (Geospiza\u00a0septentrionalis<\/em>) live way out on Wolf and Darwin Islands, the most far-flung of the Gal\u00e1pagos. (Darwin himself stuck to a more centralised area and never encountered them.) It can be hard to find food there, especially during the dry season, which runs from July through December.<\/p>

So a finch may slake his hunger and thirst by sticking his beak into a Nazca or red-footed booby. The finch pecks the much larger bird \u2013 usually just under the wing \u2013 waits for the blood to flow, and slurps it down. Other finches often wait around to tap in, or maybe to pick up some pointers.<\/p>