Genovesa Island
Today we dropped anchor inside Darwin bay at Genovesa Island. This is the home of an unbelievable number of land and sea birds, almost more than a million! We started our activities right after breakfast, landing on a small coralline, white-sand beach. A group of swallow tailed gulls were bathing not too far from where we landed, and many more birds were found along the beach and cliff. As soon as we started our walk, we identified more species such as the red billed tropicbirds, great frigate birds, Nazca Boobies and some of the endemic and rare lava gulls. To top it all, the most popular species we saw today were the red footed boobies, which hold one of the largest populations (number wise) here in this island.
As soon as we were done with our walk, we got ready to submerge ourselves into the wonderful underwater world of the Galápagos Marine reserve. We took advantage of the warmest waters we have had during the week. We snorkeled for as long as an hour and covered around a mile along the cliff. We enjoyed it a lot since we encountered lots of tropical fish such as parrot fish, streamed hogfish, giant damselfish, king angelfish, among some others.
The afternoon was quite interesting as well. We left the Polaris after a short siesta and headed to the cliff section of the island for a Zodiac ride. There was a magnificent display of seabirds flying overhead and showing off their incredible flying skills. After the ride, we landed at Prince Philips steps and headed to search the famous short eared owl. This particular species happens to be a diurnal hunter in this island, since there is not competition whatsoever for food with any other predator. As we were walking along the trail, we encountered lots of Nazca boobies in their romantic display when preening each other feathers. By the end of the walk, we found at last this beautiful predatory bird. It landed right in front of us, almost as if it was checking us out, and then, it continued its search for its dinner. As you can imagine, this was a day full of activities and wonderful sightings, and I wasn’t expecting anything less than this…
Today we dropped anchor inside Darwin bay at Genovesa Island. This is the home of an unbelievable number of land and sea birds, almost more than a million! We started our activities right after breakfast, landing on a small coralline, white-sand beach. A group of swallow tailed gulls were bathing not too far from where we landed, and many more birds were found along the beach and cliff. As soon as we started our walk, we identified more species such as the red billed tropicbirds, great frigate birds, Nazca Boobies and some of the endemic and rare lava gulls. To top it all, the most popular species we saw today were the red footed boobies, which hold one of the largest populations (number wise) here in this island.
As soon as we were done with our walk, we got ready to submerge ourselves into the wonderful underwater world of the Galápagos Marine reserve. We took advantage of the warmest waters we have had during the week. We snorkeled for as long as an hour and covered around a mile along the cliff. We enjoyed it a lot since we encountered lots of tropical fish such as parrot fish, streamed hogfish, giant damselfish, king angelfish, among some others.
The afternoon was quite interesting as well. We left the Polaris after a short siesta and headed to the cliff section of the island for a Zodiac ride. There was a magnificent display of seabirds flying overhead and showing off their incredible flying skills. After the ride, we landed at Prince Philips steps and headed to search the famous short eared owl. This particular species happens to be a diurnal hunter in this island, since there is not competition whatsoever for food with any other predator. As we were walking along the trail, we encountered lots of Nazca boobies in their romantic display when preening each other feathers. By the end of the walk, we found at last this beautiful predatory bird. It landed right in front of us, almost as if it was checking us out, and then, it continued its search for its dinner. As you can imagine, this was a day full of activities and wonderful sightings, and I wasn’t expecting anything less than this…
