GALAPAGOS

CACTUS FINCH

One of the nine species of Darwin finches evolved to fill different feeding niches on the Galapagos and identified by their distinctive beaks

"from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved"       


Charles Darwin

Cerro Diablo beach, two barren cinder cones connected by a green isthmus bordered by golden sand beaches.


The Galapagos islands lie in the Pacific ocean 1000km to the west of Ecuador. The 7882 square km land mass spread over 50,000 square km of ocean is a volcanic hotspot whose earliest islands were formed 4 - 5 million years ago although other earlier islands are thought to have subsided beneath the sea.  They were discovered by accident in 1535 when Tomas de Berlanga, Bishop of Panama, drifted of course while sailing from Panama to Peru.  It was later used as a base by pirates, sealers and whalers for food, water and firewood and the giant tortoises from whom the name comes were captured in their hundreds to be stored on board alive for up to a year.

 Scientific exploration began in the late 1700's and the archipelago's most famous visitor Charles Darwin arrived in 1835.  He stayed for 5 weeks and made notes and wildlife collections which provided evidence for his theory of evolution.  Ecuador claimed the islands in 1832 and they became a national park in 1959, having been called a laboratory of evolution.

"Nothing would be less inviting than the first appearance.  A broken field of black basaltic lava thrown into the most rugged waves and crossed by great fissures, is everywhere covered by stunted, sunburnt brushwood, which shows little signs of life"

Darwin's first impressions were less than favourable but he soon became engrossed by the variety and complexity of life to be found on these inhospitable islands.  Our week long trip visited a number of them both large and small, all different and many revealing how introduced species and depradations by farming, fishing etc had often resulted in a devastating effect on wildlife.  The first island visited was Isla Seymour, an uplifted lava island which was a breeding ground for magnificent and greater frigate birds and the blue footed booby (so called by sailors because their nests were so easy to rob)

MALE FRIGATE BIRD DISPLAYING DURING BREEDING

                                        FEMALE GREAT FRIGATE BIRD 

JUVENILE FRIGATE BIRD

Swallow tailed gull, sea lions, marine iguanas, lava lizards, lava herons and American cuckoos also breed here and are very easily seen
                      MALE SEA LION OR BEACHMASTER

SEA LION PUP

                                                               MARINE IGUANA

GREAT BLUE HERON

                                                                   LAVA HERON

On Isla Bartoleme we hiked the 340 steps to the summit of the volcanic cone passing spatter cones and solidified streams of different coloured lava. Submerged craters were visible beneath the water, hardy cactus grow on the barren slopes, red spatter cones called hornites (little ovens) and lava tubes festoon the hillside.

The boat held 16 passengers in small but adequate cabins.  The food was good and most sailing was done at night although the sea became quite rough later in the week

Landings by zodiac were either wet (slide over the side and wade ashore) or dry (balance and jump)  by the end, I had become quite adept at getting ashore.

There are 58 resident birds in the Galapagos, 28 of whom are endemic and another 6 are frequent migrants.

The Galapagos penguin is the world’s only tropical (and therefore the most Northerly) penguin. It resembles the Humbolt penguin and owes it’s presence in the Galapagos to the Humbolt current which brings cold water to the islands.

The Waved Albatross is the only albatross which nests in the tropics. Apart from a few pairs on Isla de la Plata, the entire world population of 12000 pairs nests on Espanola.

The waves from which it takes its name can be seen on

the neck of this adult bird

YOUNG WAVED ALBATROSS

There are two species of frigatebird in the galapagos, the magnificent and the great frigatebirds. The magnificent is 107cm long, 5cm longer than the great. The males are difficult to differentiate but the magnificent has a purplish sheen and the great a  greenish sheen on the back. The magnificent female has white underparts, a black throat and a blue eye ring. The great female has white underparts and throat and a red eye ring. Immature birds have white underparts and a white head.

There are three species of boobys in the Galapagos, the Red-footed, the Blue-footed Booby and the Nazca Booby. The latter was previously thought to be a variant of the masked Booby but is now recognized as a separate species which inhabits the Eastern Pacific Ocean including the Galapagos.

 List of birds seen in the Galapagos.

Click on the link to Wikipedia below for further information on each species.

Galapagos Penguin Spheniscus mendiculus
Waved Albatross Phoebastria irrorata

Audubon's Shearwater Puffinus lherminieri

Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrel Oceanodroma tethys

Red-billed Tropicbird Phaethon aethereus

Brown Pelican Pelecanus occidentali
Blue-footed Booby Sula nebouxii

Nazca Booby Sula granti

Magnificent Frigatebird Fregata magnificens

Great Frigatebird Fregata minor

Snowy Egret Egretta thula

Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis

Lava Heron Butorides sundevalli

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron Nyctanassa violacea

Caribbean Flamingo Phoenicopterus ruber

White-cheeked Pintail Anas bahamensis galapogensis

Galapagos Hawk Buteo galapagoensis

American Oystercatcher Haematopus palliatus

Black-necked Stilt Himantopus mexicanus

Semipalmated Plover Charadrius semipalmatus

Whimbrel Numenius phaeopus

Wandering Tattler Heteroscelus incanus

Sanderling Calidris alba

Least Sandpiper Calidris minutilla

Lava Gull Larus fuliginosus

Swallow-tailed Gull Creagrus furcatus

Galapagos Dove Zenaida galapagoensis

Dark-billed Cuckoo Coccyzus melacoryphus

Galapagos Mockingbird Nesomimus parvulus

Hood Mockingbird Nesomimus macdonaldi

San Cristobal Mockingbird Nesomimus melanotis

Yellow Warbler Dendroica petechia

Ruddy Turnstone Arenaria interpres

Small Ground Finch Geospiza fuliginosa

Common Cactus Finch Geospiza scandens

Large Cactus Finch Geospiza conirostris

Vegetarian Finch Camarhynchus crassirostris