Española Island
Known to us today as Española, or Hood Island, as it was named by English pirates back in the 1700s, this is one of the oldest islands of the enchanted archipelago. Approximately four million years has given animal species more time to evolve in isolation and this particular environment is home to some endemic species of its own.
The mockingbird of Española is one of the four present in the islands; they are one of the species that got Darwin’s attention back in 1835; as he collected three out of the four of them he was able to see the physical differences in them, and realized that something strange must be happening in this place – “there is a difference between the inhabitants of the different islands…”
Waved albatross that had come to reproduce here this year welcomed us as we started our inland hike; parents incubating eggs everywhere gave us a chance to talk about how special their life cycle is. Being oceanic birds, Española is the only place where these creatures land to nest. We learned that albatross spend 95% of their life soaring above the oceans of the planet.
As we continued to walk along the trails that were once Pahoa-hoe lava flows, we had a chance to see the entire breeding cycle of the Nazca boobies: couples courting, couples making a nest, couples preening each other, parents incubating eggs and, finally, parents taking turns to protect brand new chicks before the Galápagos hawks that were wandering around even noticed them.
As we get back on board we understand that these fragile ecosystems need to be protected and conserved in time, not only for us to see, but for animal species that belong here and nowhere else.
