Genovesa Island’s location in the North Hemisphere gave us a chance to cross the equatorial line and become so-called shellbacks. Genovesa is also home to one of the largest colonies of red-footed boobies worldwide. It also has a healthy population of great frigate birds, swallow-tailed gulls, Nazca boobies, and yellow-crowned night herons. It’s also home to the short-eared owl, which has adapted to the lack of predators (including the top predator, the Galapagos hawk) by hunting during daily hours. And there they were—very active looking for prey when the sun was still very high in the horizon.