Genovesa Island
The scene was outstanding when we woke up this morning. We were inside a caldera. Genovesa Island is one of the highlights of our trip. The walls around us are home to hundreds of red billed tropic birds. The trees and bushes are covered with frigate birds and red-footed boobies. This island is a paradise for birds. About a million different birds live here.
The island is very far away from the central part of the archipelago, land reptiles never made their way here, but for birds the distance is not a limitation. They came from different areas of the world, many of them found perfect conditions to become natives of the island, others evolved in order to survive on the island becoming endemic subspecies, such as the warbler finch, the large cactus finch and the sharped beak finch.
This morning we walked on Darwin Bay, a white coralline beach was the beginning of our trip. Red mangroves are great nesting sites for red-footed boobies, where we spotted several chicks and eggs. Mysterious yellow crowned night herons were hiding on caves along the trail. Swallow tailed gulls were in the surroundings too.
In the afternoon we went to Prince Philip’s steps with one mission: to spot the short eared owl, a diurnal hunter that lives in the cliffs. But the island gave us much more; we spotted several owls: on the ground, flying and in their caves. We found several Nazca boobies and red-footed boobies. We also witnessed frigate birds stealing the food of other seabirds.
Before returning to National Geographic Islander we saw a big splash in the distance… they were humpback whales! We couldn’t believe how lucky we were! This is the Galápagos, there are great emotions until the last minute of your expedition.
