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November 14, 2014: San Cristobal Island |
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November 9-16, 2014: The Celebrity Xpedition |
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Return to the Index for Our Galapagos Adventure |
Today, we will be on Santa Cruz Island first, where we will do a morning beach walk with our naturalist guide followed by our last snorkeling opportunity. In the afternoon, the ship will move to North Seymour Island, and we will do a long walk where it is promised we will see a great variety of wildlife.
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Today, we'll be getting up fairly early to leave the ship at 830AM to take one of the Zodiacs in to Santa Cruz Island for our beach walk, so there wasn't much time or opportunity to do much except get our breakfast and get ready to leave the ship.
Galapagos Shore Excursion (8):
Beach Walk on Santa Cruz
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| "On Santa Cruz´s northern coast lies Las Bachas, which includes two of the islands most gorgeous white sand beaches. The name Las Bachas originates from the Second World War, when the American army left two barges on the beach. The first settlers could not pronounce barges correctly hence Las Bachas was born. The beaches are one of the main nesting sites of Green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) in the Galapagos as such please do not walk on the sand dunes or nesting areas. It is also a good place to see flamingos, as well as migratory and aquatic birds. After a short walk, either return on board or stay to swim/snorkel. Duration: About 2 hours" |
Yoost, Fred and I left the Xpedition on the second Zodiac to leave- just after eight-thirty in the morning. The ride in to the beach had become quite routine.
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Landing At Bachas Beach, Santa Cruz Island
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Before we started off on the hike, I got a nice picture of Fred on Bachas beach, and between us we took a few other decent pictures on this overcast morning. You can click on the thumbnail images below to have a look at them:
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When our group had put their snorkeling gear off to the side for later, we assembled with our naturalist and headed off on our walk. As we walked along the beach, our naturalist gave us history and background on many of the animals that we saw. Probably the best way to organize the pictures I want to include here is to group them my type of animal, rather than just present the pictures in chronological order. There will also need to be a section just about the beach and the surrounding landscape.
As we headed off on our walk this morning, I tried to practice a bit using the extender to make movies with me in them. I'm trying to emulate someone we see doing the same thing on a television hiking show, but he is much more polished and good at it. The one thing I didn't take the time to do was to clip off the part of the movie where I am reaching out to start the film or reaching over to conclude it. But then this is just a photo album, and not a professional travelogue. I think the movies turn out OK, even with my fumblings, and you can use the players below to have a look at them:
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Sally Lightfoot Crabs
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The young are usually black or dark brown and so are well-camouflaged on the black lava coasts. Adults are quite variable in color; many are almost ludicrously colorful, in tones of red, orange and yellow.
The Sally Lightfoot crab lives amongst the rocks at the often turbulent, windy shore, just above the limit of the sea spray. It feeds on algae primarily, sometimes sampling other plant matter and dead animals. It is a quick-moving and agile crab, and hard to catch. Not considered very edible by humans, it is used as bait by fishermen. The crab has also been observed in an apparent cleaning symbiosis taking ticks from marine iguanas on the Galápagos Islands.
The crab's round, flat carapace averages just over 3 inches long, and can reach a width of four or five inches. I saw quite a few that seemed to be about 4 inches wide, but none much bigger.
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Grapsus grapsus was collected by Charles Darwin during his voyages on HMS Beagle, and was also described and collected as part of the first comprehensive study of the fauna of the Gulf of California, carried out by Ed Ricketts, together with John Steinbeck and others.
Today was an excellent day for photographing these colorful animals; click on the thumbnail images below to see some of the many good pictures we took:
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Of all the animals we saw here in the Galapagos, the Sally Lightfoot crabs were by far the most colorful. On the other hand, they were probably at the bottom of the "aww..." scale (right down there with the marine iguanas).
Marine Iguanas
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Marine iguanas are sexually dimorphic with adult males weighing about 70% more than adult females. There is a correlation between longevity and body size, particularly for adult males. Large body size in males is selected for sexually, but can be detrimental during El Niño events when resources are scare. This results in large males suffering higher mortality than females and smaller adult males. The mortality rates of marine iguanas are, in fact, explained through the size difference between the sexes.
In the BBC Series on the Galapagos, the photo crew found a number of locations where hundreds of marine iguanas were in a single group, but the largest group we saw had perhaps twenty iguanas in it. This group was typical.
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Males are selected by females on the basis of their body size, with females displaying a marked preference in mating with bigger males. During the breeding season, males defend their mates and, roughly one month after copulation, females lay between one to six eggs. The eggs take 3 months to incubate in nests dug 1-2 feet deep in sand or volcanic ash. It is precisely because of body size that reproductive performance increases and is mediated by higher survival of larger hatchlings from larger females and increased mating success of larger males. In other words, at least among marine iguanas, "size matters".
Click on the thumbnail images below to see some our better pictures of the marine iguanas at Bachas Beach:
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At the Lagoon: Flamingos
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About three feet long from head to toe, Galapagos Flamingos are the standard pink, with touches of red and black. Also like other flamingos, they have a goose-like honk. Flamingos filter-feed on brine shrimp and other small water animals. Their oddly-shaped beaks are specially adapted to separate mud and silt from the food they consume (but only when used upside-down). Hairy structures called lamellae line the mandibles and help filter the food. The food flamingos eat is full of carotenoids (the enzymes that give carrots their color). These cause flamingo feathers to turn pink. The richer their food is in these enzymes, the pinker they get.
Flamingos build nest mounds made of mud, small stones, straw and feathers. Both females and males use their beaks in building their nests. These mounds may be as high as 12 inches high because they serve as protection against the extreme heat and flooding that occurs at ground level. Flamingos usually lay just one large egg and both male and female take turns incubating the egg by sitting on the nest. Because there are no regular breeding seasons, chicks hatch throughout the year. Newly hatched chicks have grey or white down feathers and a straight red beak. Males and females produce a milk-like substance that nourishes the chicks until the begin to filter feed at about two months of age. Their pink feathers begin to show after a two or three year period. Flamingos begin to breed at about age six and, in the wild, they can live 50 years.
Click on the thumbnail images below to see more of the pictures we took of the flamingos here at the lagoon:
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While we were here at the lagoon, I took a good picture of Fred using the lagoon as a backdrop, and you can see that picture here. I also used my camera's panorama capability to make one of the lagoon and our walking party, and you can see that picture below:
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We saw Galapagos Flamingos only here, and we also saw another Galapagos denizen for the only time here at the lagoon on Santa Cruz island.
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There are three subspecies. The Caribbean has the Lesser Bahama Pintail; it is also a vagrant to southern Florida. The Greater Bahama Pintail is found in South America, and it is partly migratory, breeding in Argentina and wintering further north. The Galapagos is host to the eponymous Galapagos Pintail. Click on the thumbnail images below for a couple more pictures showcasing the Galapagos Pintail:
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Like many southern ducks, the sexes are similar. It is mainly brown with white cheeks and a red-based grey bill (young birds lack the pink). It is easily distinguishable from any other duck in its range. The white-cheeked pintail feeds on aquatic plants and small creatures obtained by dabbling. The nest is on the ground under vegetation and near water.
Sea Turtles
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If you do, you'll see the tracks left by sea turtles who had recently (perhaps the night before) come up to lay eggs in the sand dunes. While we could get right next to the tracks they left, we were cautioned not to go over the crest of the sloped dune so that we wouldn't inadvertently disturb any of the nests.
Perhaps the clearest track is one that I had Fred kneel beside so I could put a human scale to the picture. You can see that track here.
Walking Along Bachas Beach
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To view the slideshow, just click on the image at left and I will open the slideshow in a new window. In the slideshow, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and the index numbers in the upper left of each image will tell you where you are in the series. When you are finished looking at the pictures, just close the popup window.
I took one other panoramic picture this morning of Bachas Beach, and you can see it below:
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Now it was back to the beach for our final round of snorkeling!
Galapagos Shore Excursion (9):
Snorkeling on Santa Cruz
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To view the slideshow, just click on the image at left and I will open the slideshow in a new window. In the slideshow, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and the index numbers in the upper left of each image will tell you where you are in the series. When you are finished looking at the pictures, just close the popup window.
Galapagos Shore Excursion (10):
A Deep-Water Snorkel off Santa Cruz Island
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We have selected a representative sample of the best of them to include here. To look at the full-size pictures, just click on the thumbnail images below:
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Click on the thumbnail images below to see some pictures Fred took as our Zodiac (with me sitting across from Yoost, nearest the camera, at the front) returned to the Xpedition:
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Pretty much as soon as we were back aboard, the Captain was heading towards North Seymour Island.
Galapagos Shore Excursion (11):
A Long Walk On North Seymour Island
As you can see from the map this afternoon, the ship has moved about ten or eleven miles to anchor off North Seymour Island.
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| "North Seymour is north of Baltra and was formed by tectonic uplifts that caused underwater volcanic deposits to rise above the sea. Sandwiched in between these ancient lava flows are deposits made of the shells and skeletons of ocean organisms laid down when the hardened lava was below the sea surface about a million years ago. Our walk takes us over sand beaches and boulder trails. The island hosts the largest nesting colony of Great Frigate birds in the Galapagos. The Magnificent frigate is also present along with sea lions, marine and land iguanas, and blue-footed boobies. Duration: About 2 hours" |
We left the Xpedition in one of the Zodiacs right at 4:30 and we were climbing out onto North Seymour Island just a few minutes later. North Seymour Island (named after an English nobleman, Lord Hugh Seymour) was formed by uplift of a submarine lava formation. The whole island is covered with low, bushy vegetation. It only has an area of 3/4 square mile and a maximum elevation of 90 feet. The island is home to a large population of blue-footed boobies and swallow-tailed gulls. It hosts one of the largest populations of frigate birds anywhere, as well as a slow growing population of the Galapagos land iguana.
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If we just look at the pictures in the order we took them on our walk, we'll find that since the same animal might have been spotted numerous times, there would be a lot of repetition, so I'm going to do the same thing on this page that I have done for some other of our walks- I will group all the photos of a particular bird, mammal or reptile together, pretty much regardless of where they were taken.
But there will be something of an order to the pictures. For example, we saw most of the reptiles right at the beginning of the walk, most of the birds as we were crossing the island shore to shore going northwest, and all of the sea lions either right at the beginning or as we were walking along the beach and rocks on our return leg. These general areas are marked on the aerial view.
We landed at a rocky area, and stepped right off onto dry land; we were greeted immediately by some sea lions and swallow-tailed gulls. After we had walked a few feet away from the landing spot, our naturalist stopped to give us an orientation to North Seymour Island as we started taking pictures and looking around.
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We also took some pictures as we were milling about (including one of some folks in another Zodiac who were on the alternate excursion and doing only a short walk). You can click on the thumbnail images below to have a look at some of these pictures:
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Before we headed off on our walk, I did take a panoramic picture of our group and a section of the coastline of North Seymour Island. In that picture, shown below, you can see towards the left the shoreline of Baltra Island; to the right, way across the water, you can see the two tiny islands of Daphne Major and Daphne Minor (the very tiny one at right):
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We didn't have to go very far before our naturalist stopped us to talk about land iguanas.
Galapagos Land Iguanas
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Charles Darwin described the Galapagos land iguana as "ugly animals, of a yellowish orange beneath, and of a brownish-red colour above." You can see this coloration here. Darwin went on to say that "from their low facial angle they have a singularly stupid appearance."
We saw three or four of these reptiles, although one of them seemed different than the rest, being of a mostly black color. I thought this one might be a marine iguana, but our guide pointed out the distinctive facial features of the land variety.
The Galapagos land iguana grows to a length of three to five feet with a body weight of up to twenty-five pounds, depending upon which island they are from. Being cold-blooded, they absorb heat from the sun by basking on a volcanic rock, and at night sleep in burrows to conserve that body heat. These iguanas also enjoy a symbiotic relationship with birds; the birds remove parasites and ticks, providing relief to the iguanas and food for the birds.
Land iguanas are primarily herbivorous; however, some individuals have shown that they are opportunistic carnivores supplementing their diet with insects, centipedes and carrion. Because fresh water is scarce on the islands it inhabits, the Galapagos land iguana obtains the majority of its moisture from the prickly-pear cactus that makes up 80% of its diet: fruit, flowers, pads, and even spines; during the rainy season it will drink from available standing pools of water.
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Galapagos land iguanas become sexually mature anywhere between eight and fifteen years of age, depending on which island they are from. Mating season also varies between islands, but soon after mating, the females migrate to sandy areas to nest, laying 2–25 eggs in a burrow 18 inches deep. The eggs hatch anywhere from 90 to 125 days later. There is one island where the land and marine iguanas sometimes interbreed. Despite their long separation time and their being two distinct species from different genera, the offspring are viable, although likely sterile.
Click on the thumbnail images below to see a few of the pictures I took of one of the iguanas who seemed content to pose:
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It is estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 land iguanas are found in the Galapagos today, although in Darwin's time they were abundant. In his journals, Darwin remarked that "...we could not for some time find a spot free from their burrows on which to pitch our single tent". What decimated the iguanas (including all the ones on Santiago Island) were the feral members of the clans of animals introduced by humans- pigs, rats, cats, and dogs.
I made two movies involving two different individual iguanas. I wanted to show how they moved over the landscape. I did not narrate either video, preferring to let the iguana speak (or not speak) for itself. You can use the players below to watch these movies:
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Beginning in the early 1990s the Galapagos land iguana has been the subject of an active reintroduction campaign on Baltra Island. These animals became extinct on Baltra by 1954, many having been translocated to North Seymour in the 1930s and the rest killed by soldiers stationed there during World War II who shot them for amusement. The translocated iguanas survived, and became the breeding stock for the Charles Darwin Research Station captive breeding program which has successfully reintroduced the species to Baltra and other islands. Visitors today frequently see iguanas on both the runway of the Baltra airport or while they cross the road. They are interesting creatures and we took many pictures of them. Click on the thumbnail images below to see the best of these:
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Swallow-tailed Gulls
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It is unique among gulls in feeding exclusively nocturnally; it leaves the colony as a flock at dusk, with a great deal of screaming and display.
These calls and displays are also quite different from other gulls. The loudest and most commonly heard call is an alarm referred to as "rattle-and-whistle", a gurgling scream made with the head moving side to side. This call is contagious, with other birds joining in without seeing the cause. A loud and rapid kweek, kweek, kweek is the greeting call between mates, made with the head and neck curved forward to the ground. We saw these in the Galapagos video earlier today; they are quite comical.
In order to see while hunting for food at night, the swallow-tailed gull's eyes are larger in size and volume than those of any other gull. They also possess a structure in the back of the eye that reflects light back through the retina, increasing the amount of light available to the photoreceptor cells.
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The swallow-tailed gull breeds from about 5 years old, with pairs frequently staying together from year to year. Most breed throughout the year in mixed colonies on the cliffs of the Galápagos Islands sometimes on flat areas, and food for the young is hunted from the seas near to the nesting colonies.
The nest is made on a small platform on a cliff, usually less than 30 ft. above sea level, by covering the rocky ground with small pieces of lava, white coral, and sea urchin spines, which prevent the egg from rolling. Nesting birds tend to face the cliff, a habit common among exclusively cliff nesting gulls. The female usually lays one speckled egg per breeding attempt. They are asynchronous breeders (can breed any time of the year), and follow a nine-month cycle, or less if an egg or chick is unsuccessful. The egg is generally incubated for about 30 days. A chick takes its first flight at about 60–70 days old, and is fed by the adults until about 90 days, when it leaves the land, possibly with the adults, to live over the open seas.
Population trends have not been estimated, but the swallow-tail gull is not thought to be threatened. The population was estimated to be about 35,000 individuals when it was last considered in 2004. These are very interesting birds, and if you will click on the thumbnail images below, you can see the additional good pictures we took of them:
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Blue-Footed Boobies
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But when we moved inland, we saw more of them. But these were females and we had a chance to see them nesting (laying eggs) and also feeding newly-hatched chicks. This gave us a new insight into this unusual bird.
The blue-footed booby is one of only two species of booby that raises more than one chick in a breeding cycle. The female blue-footed booby lays two or three eggs, about four to five days apart. Both male and female take turns incubating the eggs, while the non-sitting bird keeps watch. Since the blue-footed booby does not have a brooding patch, it uses its feet to keep the eggs warm. The incubation period is 41–45 days.
When the chicks hatch, both parents begin feeding duty. Female chicks grow faster than male chicks do, and consequently the adults have to provide more food in a shorter time for them.
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Chicks feed off the regurgitated fish in the adult's mouth. We got a chance to watch this process, and I made a short movie of an adult booby and its chick. (You can use the player at right to watch that movie.)
If the parent blue-footed booby does not have enough food for all of the chicks, it will only feed the biggest chick, ensuring that at least one will survive. Most booby nests have two eggs, with one hatching four or five days before the other. This leads to one chick getting head start on the other. In times when food is plentiful, both chicks stand a good chance of survival, but when food is scarce, a rivalry will develop in the brood- usually "won" by the bigger chick. The studies that scientists have made of booby behavior have provided clues to unravel the mysteries of sibling rivalry across species.
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As it turned out, the blue-footed booby wasn't the only kind we saw.
Red-Footed Boobies
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The red-footed booby is the smallest member of the booby family at about 28 in. in length and with a wingspan of up to 3.3 ft.; adults weigh about two pounds. While it has red legs, its bill and throat pouch are colored pink and blue.
The plumage varies; each different color scheme is called a "morph". Some are mostly white, with the head tinged yellowish and black flight feathers. Others have black tails, making them easily mistaken for other boobies. Some are mostly brown, and another variant has brown plumage with a white belly, rump, and tail. They all breed together, but in most regions one or two colors predominate.
In the Galápagos Islands, most belong to the brown morph, though the white morph also occurs. We were lucky to see one of each right next to each other.
The sexes are similar, and juveniles are brownish with darker wings, and pale pinkish legs, while chicks are covered in dense white down.
This species breeds on islands in most tropical oceans- a more extensive range that the blue-footed booby. When not breeding it spends most of the time at sea, and is therefore rarely seen away from breeding colonies; that is one reason our naturalist was surprised to see a pair here. The two colonies of these boobies that he knew of were on other islands.
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Red-footed booby pairs may remain together over several seasons. Like their blue-footed brethren, they perform elaborate greeting rituals, including harsh squawks and the male's display of his blue throat, also including short dances. They don't, however, tend to stomp around to show off their red feet.
Red-footed boobies are spectacular divers, plunging into the ocean at high speeds to catch prey. They mainly eat small fish or squid which gather in groups near the surface.
Since we only saw the one pair, most of our pictures were similar. But if you would like to see a few more, just click on the thumbnail images below:
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The largest bird colony here on North Seymour is not the boobies, though- it is the Great Frigatebird.
Great Frigatebirds
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The great frigatebird is a lightly built, large seabird up to 3 feet long with predominantly black plumage. The female is larger than the male with a white throat and breast. In the breeding season, not having bright blue feet to show off, the male distends its striking red gular sac. The species feeds on fish taken in flight from the ocean's surface or just beneath it.
Frigatebirds have long narrow pointed wings and a long narrow deeply forked tail. They have the highest ratio of wing area to body mass and the lowest wing loading of any bird. This has been hypothesized to enable the birds to utilize marine thermals created by small differences between tropical air and water temperatures. The plumage of males is black with scapular feathers that have a green iridescence when they refract sunlight. Females are black with a white throat and breast and have a red eye ring. Juveniles are black with a rust-tinged white face, head, and throat.
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Great frigatebirds undertake regular migrations across their range, both regular trips and more infrequent widespread dispersals. Birds marked with wing tags have been found to have traveled more than 500 miles. Despite their extended range, the birds almost always breed in their birth colony even if they travel to other colonies.
The great frigatebird forages within 50 mi. of the breeding colony or roosting areas. Flying fish are its most common meal, but other fish species and squid may be eaten as well. Prey is snatched while in flight, either from just below the surface or from the air in the case of flying fish flushed from the water. Great frigatebirds will make use of schools of predatory tuna or pods of dolphins that push schooling fish to the surface. Like all frigatebirds they will not alight on the water surface and are usually incapable of taking off should they accidentally do so.
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We saw lots of male and female frigatebirds, although it seems that is is the males that get photographed most often (for obvious reasons). But we took pictures of the females, too, and you can click on the thumbnail images below to see some of the better ones:
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Great frigatebirds are seasonally monogamous, with a breeding season that can take two years from mating to the end of parental care. The species is colonial, nesting in bushes and trees (and on the ground in the absence of vegetation) in colonies of up to several thousand pairs. Nesting bushes are often shared with other species, especially red-footed boobies and other species of frigatebirds.
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Towards the end of our walk, we came upon a bushy area near the shore where a number of male frigatebirds were trying to attract mates. Apparently, one of them was either successful in getting a female to respond to his sac and his wings, or he thought he'd try somewhere else, and he flew off while I was filming. You can use the player at right to have a look at this movie.
And you can click on the thumbnail images below to see some other males hard at work attracking females:
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Building the nest can take days or weeks. Males collect loose nesting material and the female actually builds the nest. Males are not above stealing nesting material (or even entire nests) from other birds who are doing the same thing. Great frigatebird nests are large platforms of loosely woven twigs that quickly become encrusted with guano. There is little attempt to maintain the nests during the breeding season and nests may disintegrate before the period is over.
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Parental care is prolonged in great frigatebirds. Fledging occurs after four to six months, and the fledglings receive parental care (and the occasional meal) for sometimes a year after that- the longest period of any bird. Ornithologists have studied frigatebirds extensively, with at least one surprising observation: young fledglings actually play. One will pick up a stick and is then chased by other fledglings. When that chick drops the stick, one of the chasers attempts to catch it before it hits the water. If successful, the game starts again. This play is thought to be important in developing the aerial skills needed to fish.
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Great figatebirds take many years to reach sexual maturity and only breed once they have acquired the full adult plumage. This is attained by female birds when they are eight to nine years of age and for male birds when they are 10 to 11 years of age. The average lifespan is unknown but is assumed to be relatively long. As part of a study conducted in 2002 on Tern Island in Hawaii, 35 ringed great frigatebirds were recaptured. Of these 10 were 37 years or older and one was at least 44 years old.
Because of the large overall total population and its extended range, the species is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being of "Least Concern". The South Atlantic subspecies, however, may no longer exist. It used to breed on an island 600 miles east of Brazil when that island was covered in forest. Logging destroyed the forests, and then overgrazing by the introduced goats prevented any recovery. A series of eradication programs finally eliminated (in 1998) all the introduced vertebrates other than house mice- including the feral cats that had seriously depleted ground nesting birds. This may have been too little, too late, for the last reports of any frigatebird species nesting on the island were in 1975, although there have been several reported observations of frigatebirds in flight.
Sea Lions
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We saw quite a few of them twice this afternoon. At the beginning of our walk, there were a number of them lying about on the rocks and up on shore. And in the latter half of our walk, which was along the beach, we saw a good many more of them lying on the sand and the rocks. We also saw some young sea lions and a couple that were nursing.
Although, like any animal, sea lions can be agressive and territorial if other animals or humans push their limits, certainly from a distance they are, in a word, adorable. If it were allowed, it would be hard to resist petting them, they look so docile. The pictures below are representative of the individuals we saw at the beginning of our walk; click on the thumbnail images to have a look:
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Galapagos sea lions are a bit smaller than their Californian relatives, ranging up to eight feet long and some 500 pounds. About the only way to tell the sexes apart from a distance is that females tend to have a longer, more slender neck and thick torso. Both male and female sea lions have a pointy, whiskered nose and somewhat long, narrow muzzle. The young pups are almost dog-like in profile.
Another characteristic that defines the sea lion are their external ear-like pinnae flaps which distinguish them from their close relative with which they are often confused, the seal. The foreflippers have a short fur extending from the wrist to the middle of the dorsal fin surface, but other than that, the flippers are covered in black, leathery skin. Curving posteriorly, the first digit of the flipper is the largest, giving it a swept-back look. At the end of each digit is a claw, usually reduced to a vestigial nodule that rarely emerges above the skin. Although somewhat clumsy on land with their flippers, sea lions are amazingly agile in water.
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Breeding takes place from May through January. Because of this prolonged breeding season and the extensive care required by the pups from their mother, there are dependent pups in the colonies year round. Each cow in the harem has a single pup born a year after conception. After about a week of continuous attention from birth, the female returns to the ocean and begins to forage, and just a week after that, the pup will follow her and begin to develop its swimming skills. The mothers will take the young pups with them into the water while nursing until around the 11th month, when the pups are weaned from their mother’s milk and become dependent on their own hunting skills.
On previous days and on previous excursions, we had certainly seen our share of these ubquitous creatures, so we did not take all that many pictures. But we did take a fair number of movies, many of which are worthwhile watching.
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Sadly, as it turned out, he ended his movie just second before the sea lion, which had been hesitating, finally took the plunge.
Use the player at left to have a look at Fred's movie.
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Although there is a bit of wind noise, I have not eliminated the audio track so that you can hear the sea lion's bark. Use the player at left to watch this movie.
I believe that it was the same pup that eventually came up onto the sand, and it was pretty cute. I made two movies of it that you might like to watch. In both cases, since I did not narrate, I have eliminated the audio track so the wind noise isn't distracting. You can watch these two movies with the players below:
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Use the player at left to watch Fred's movie.
As I said earlier, we saw a good deal of nursing activity this afternoon, and two of my movie show that behavior. You can use the players below to watch a couple of pairs of mother and pup; in both cases, the female seems oblivious to the demands of her pup:
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I'll end this section about the sea lions that we saw with a final series of pictures you might find interesting. They show individuals and pairs sunbathing, nursing and just, as I said, looking adorable. Click on the thumbnails below to have a look:
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The Galapagos Brown Pelican
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We only took three other pictures of the one brown pelican we saw today; click on the thumbnail images below to have a look at them:
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Pelicans are very gregarious birds; they live in flocks of both sexes throughout the year. They are exceptionally buoyant due to the internal air sacks beneath their skin and in their bones, and as graceful in the air as they are clumsy on land. When foraging, they dive bill-first, often submerging completely below the surface momentarily as they snap up prey. Upon surfacing they spill the water from the throat pouch before swallowing their catch. Although the brown pelican eats mostly fish, an occasional amphibian or crustacean may supplement the diet- 3-4 pounds of food a day. Today, in many coastal areas, brown pelicans will loaf around fishing ports and piers in hopes of being fed or stealing scraps of fish; as it turned out, we'd get a chance to see them do that a day or two hence.
Some Final Pictures from Our Walk on North Seymour
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This was a really great excursion, and we got to see almost all the different Galapagos natives in one afternoon.
I finished up my own picture-taking today with a panoramic view of the beach area and ocean beyond. You can even see the Xpedition anchored far in the distance at the left of the panorama:
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You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.
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November 14, 2014: San Cristobal Island |
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November 9-16, 2014: The Celebrity Xpedition |
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Return to the Index for Our Galapagos Adventure |
