Española Island
Española is the oldest island of them all, old enough to have lost its original shape of a shield volcano. It lost its shape to nature, flattened by weather. Not everyone can live here. Being the closest to the cold Humboldt Current, there isn’t much rain year round. This makes a difficult situation, which its first settlers had to face upon arrival, a couple million years ago.
Therefore its land inhabitants are so unique. They’re used to the struggle for life most of the time, dealing with a very dry place. The Española Mockingbird, for example, has grown different from its ancestors, not only in appearance but also it has turned into a very irreverent creature towards every life form. Nothing matters, they have to survive, so drinking blood, or eating decomposed flesh counts.
On the other hand, we have the sweetness of the sea lion colony – females and new pups next to one another. Not much later, we came to the Nazca Booby colony, which is totally concentrated on what matters, the continuation of their species. In between them, a few blue-footed boobies mixed with some swallowtail gulls. Among our feet there were colorful marine iguanas, as well as some lava lizards.
Before continuing with the list of species seen in one day, it is better to remark about the fact of the islands being islands, places isolated where reptiles, marine birds, and land birds are well represented. However, there are almost no native mammals, due to the distance from the mainland.
And so, thinking about this place, the only way to discover and enjoy it is to walk between all the creatures on Punta Suarez, our morning place, and swim or snorkel in the afternoon at Gardner Bay. To fulfill this day and absorb the place we kayaked along the coast of Gardner Bay and just in case someone found this activity too strenuous, the glass bottom boat was there.
Well, this is just a story of all that we saw in one day. This is just the first full day… we have so much more to come!
