Genovesa, home to thousands

baby Nasca Booby on our path to the flat top of Genovesa

Genovesa, probably my favorite Galapagos island, is the nesting place for thousands of red-footed boobies, Nazca boobies, frigate birds and a variety of gulls.  Neither blue-footed boobies nor albatrosses nest here.  One has to wonder why, since all these birds fly long distances, they are so specialized in their breeding areas.

boats in Genovesa's caldera at sunset

Today, as we climbed the steps from the rocky landing site to Genovesa’s flat top covered with sharp and fractured lava, a lovely baby red-footed boobie, still covered in its white plumage, was resting right in the path, waiting for its parents to come home with food.  It tolerated the first 2 or 3 humans quite well, but became really annoyed with the rest of us, pecking at our legs with its long beak.  When we returned to our dinghies, there it still was, just as determined to block our path.

adult Red-footed Booby

The animals and birds on the Galapagos Islands have no fear of humans.  You can walk right up to any of them—no touching!—and they will neither move nor exhibit signs of alarm.  The National Park Service has laid out paths through the nesting colonies on all the islands tourists can visit, so that it appears the birds, iguanas, tortoises and lizards all know that if they are outside the path boundaries, they are safe.  They seem to feel just fine along the path anyway since many of them put their nests squarely in the way of visiting footsteps.

Although the primary nesting season is still months away, we saw dozens of baby boobies and frigate birds and some parents sitting on their eggs in their nests.  The red-footed boobies build nests of sticks in the low trees and bushes while Nazca boobies simply lay their eggs on the ground without preparation. 

Frigate bird in the air

Frigate birds also nest in the trees, usually stealing nesting material from one of the booby nests. 

Frigate birds are the thieves of the bird world here.  They get their food by taking it away from the boobies, almost always in mid-flight.  If a booby dives for fish, that motion alone will attract the frigate birds, since they know that a good booby catch is an instant meal for themselves and their offspring.  They also regularly steal nesting sticks from other nests, sometimes causing the baby to crash to the ground in the process, setting it up for certain starvation.

The Galapagos owl is found only on Genovesa Island.  We spotted two today, one far off and almost invisible on the dark lava and the other, inside a deep crack in the lava with plenty of space for a nest.  These owls eat mostly small birds, particularly the Storm Petrol, another abundant species here.

Galapagos OWL 

We snorkeled along the cliffs of Genovesa, home to gorgeously colored fish of many sizes.  The water is quite cold, so we were happy to have long wetsuits and, particularly, to occasionally find a patch of really warm water.  We didn’t swim with any turtles today, though we saw several in the deeper water.  Sea lions were sleeping along the ledges in the cliffs.  A lone Galapagos Shark joined us as it searched for its next meal.

baby ray

This afternoon, we walked along a beach and through a forest of red mangroves.  The trees, cliffs and skies were absolutely filled with birds.  Babies were everywhere in their white fluff.  The beaks of the baby red-footed boobies were just beginning to turn blue like their parents (red-footed boobies have bright blue beaks and bright red feet--quite stunning).  Overhead, the sky was filled with hundreds of birds, boobies trying to make it to their nests with the fish they’d caught while being chased by frigate birds intent on robbing them of their food.

In one shallow lagoon, a baby ray swam just beneath the surface while out in the deeper water, we saw a beautiful Eagle Ray, with all its iridescent blue spots across its back.

Each of these islands has its own species of birds.  Some are the only nesting places in the world for the species that come to the islands to mate and raise their young.  While the whaling and merchant ships nearly exterminated the land tortoises, and did so on many of the islands, the breeding centers are working to find tortoises with some genes from the distinct varieties each island used to host.  Eventually, these tortoises will be repatriated to the home of their ancestors, probably including Genovesa.

Nazca Booby and chick

Because we’re right on the equator, the sun sets rather quickly.  It rises and sets at just about the same time every day.  We have filled the intervening 12 hours with lots of activities, from snorkeling to walking on the islands to (some of us) kayaking.

Cactus finches are plentiful.  It was his observation of the finches, and their differentiated beaks and sizes, that so intrigued Charles Darwin and set him on the path towards his theory of evolution.  In the 1970's and 1980's, scientists studied the 13 varieties of finches in the Galapagos intensively, and wrote about the dramatic "selection events" that demonstrated evolution in several species, based on the environment of that moment in time.  See Jonathan Weiner's fascinating book, The Beak of the Finch, for a lively description of this research.

 

Cactus finch