Paint-Billed Crake
The thought crossed my mind recently that visiting the Galapagos was a trip of a lifetime – but I did not expect it would take me another lifetime to get through all the pictures.
The Paint-Billed Crake above and below has got to be the most cooperative crake I have ever tried to photograph, let alone see.
These pictures are in no particular order. In fact I think they’re nearly in the order I uploaded them. They are all from Floreana Island and environs.
Always looking for a cooperative Blue-Footed Booby, but sometimes they move too fast.
Blue-Footed Booby
The Nazca Boobies, on the other hand, are always available for pictures.
Below, a Brown Noddy on the left, and on the right and below, the ubiquitous Elliott’s Storm-Petrel. I got spoiled seeing these birds off the bough of the boat every day. Guess I’ll need to take more pelagic trips if I want more of this sort of thing.
Floreana Island has its own subspecies of Galapagos Mockingbird.
I think we saw at least one Galapagos Flycatcher every day.
Galapagos Flycatcher
This island also has a budding tortoise population.
The hard-to-capture bird below is a Galapagos Shearwater. They were rarely seen except for one early evening when a group of them was following the boat, walking on water.
Adding another Darwin’s Finch to the list, below is the Medium Tree Finch, I believe a male on the left and a female on the right.
And below, two individuals from the Small Ground Finch clan. We may have seen them every day too.
The Red-Billed Tropicbird below was my ongoing challenge. Although we saw plenty of them they were either too far away or too fast to capture perfectly. But I kept trying.
I will never tire of Sally Lightfoot Crabs. Who is Sally Lightfoot? Apparently no one in particular, but one website says they get their name from being nimble on their feet. That’s a Marine Iguana with and below the crab.
The Galapagos Sea Lions we saw nearly every day, too. No complaints.
Below, a juvenile Swallow-Tailed Gull and two flight shots. You can actually see the swallow-tail in the top right flight picture. Click on it for enlargement.
Below, a Wedge-Rumped Storm-Petrel and me, likely trying to get pictures of it.
Those Galapagos Yellow Warblers always seemed happy to see us.
I hope you are enjoying the holiday season, wherever you are. We are currently toughening up to withstand the Polar Vortex which shows no signs of going anywhere anytime soon. Snow is predicted this weekend. That’s Snow with a Capital S.
Small Tree Finch
I’m doing well after my second cataract surgery and looking forward to a new prescription in a few weeks.
I’m not happy with working late, Friday night. End of Complaining. Hope to be back to this page soon.
There are plenty of places to see Vermilion Flycatchers and they’re probably not the first bird to come to mind when one visits the Galapagos, but did that stop me from taking way too many pictures of this one? Of course not!
Some birds we had seen before, others not.
Below is a video of an interaction between two of these magnificent creatures, which might give you more of an idea.
We went back to the catamaran for an early lunch, then went snorkeling before exploring the lava rocks on the other side of the island. I tried out my underwater camera gear for the first time. I was not able to capture anything very well, but the dive was great fun. We never stayed in for very long, but I always felt like I could stay down forever.
A closer look at the Sally Lightfoot Crab and a Lava Lizard on the right. You’ll have to click on the pictures to see them better.
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