Espanola
I have had the good fortune of returning to Punta Suarez every year for the past five years with Polaris, and it is always a wonderful experience. This morning we landed on this “island of endemics” and were immediately immersed in a panoply of wildlife action. A young sea lion pup had been born the night before, its umbilical cord was still visible and the placenta was nearby. A group of blue-footed boobies was diving repeatedly on a school of bait fish in the shallows. A young sea lion was playing with a marine iguana, continuously pulling its tail and letting it go. A bull sea lion was swimming along the water’s edge barking loudly to announce his territorial ownership.
Before long we had seen several of the species that are found only on the island of Espanola: the Hood mockingbird, the Hood lava lizard and the red sided Espanola subspecies of marine iguana. Blue-footed boobies were all over the place—most with young downy chicks. Some downy and brown waved albatross chicks were also found by the trail. At the edge of the cliff we were able to sit down and watch the avian world go by: waved albatrosses cruised past on their long thin wings, blue-footed and Nazca boobies, swallow-tailed gulls, and red-billed tropicbirds were also seen.
It was a fantastic morning which followed an outstanding first outing yesterday. Unbelievably, on our Saturday afternoon Zodiac cruise along the northwestern coast of Santa Cruz Island, we watched a breaching humpback whale and her calf. The question is, after two awesome days in a row what can we find tomorrow to satisfy our now high standards for adventure and thrills?
I have had the good fortune of returning to Punta Suarez every year for the past five years with Polaris, and it is always a wonderful experience. This morning we landed on this “island of endemics” and were immediately immersed in a panoply of wildlife action. A young sea lion pup had been born the night before, its umbilical cord was still visible and the placenta was nearby. A group of blue-footed boobies was diving repeatedly on a school of bait fish in the shallows. A young sea lion was playing with a marine iguana, continuously pulling its tail and letting it go. A bull sea lion was swimming along the water’s edge barking loudly to announce his territorial ownership.
Before long we had seen several of the species that are found only on the island of Espanola: the Hood mockingbird, the Hood lava lizard and the red sided Espanola subspecies of marine iguana. Blue-footed boobies were all over the place—most with young downy chicks. Some downy and brown waved albatross chicks were also found by the trail. At the edge of the cliff we were able to sit down and watch the avian world go by: waved albatrosses cruised past on their long thin wings, blue-footed and Nazca boobies, swallow-tailed gulls, and red-billed tropicbirds were also seen.
It was a fantastic morning which followed an outstanding first outing yesterday. Unbelievably, on our Saturday afternoon Zodiac cruise along the northwestern coast of Santa Cruz Island, we watched a breaching humpback whale and her calf. The question is, after two awesome days in a row what can we find tomorrow to satisfy our now high standards for adventure and thrills?
