Genovesa Island
We spent our last full day in Galápagos on the spectacular northern island of Genovesa, one of the most pristine islands in the archipelago. Early in the morning we entered into the island bay, via a narrow, shallow underwater channel, a huge submerged caldera of this ancient dormant volcano.
In the morning we had a wet landing at Darwin Beach. This was an overwhelming seabird experience, frigate birds nesting and displaying their red balloons, red-footed boobies, Nazca boobies, swallow-tailed gulls, storm petrels, and tropicbirds were right there at the landing site.
Along the beach trail, hundreds of red-footed boobies were very active trying to build their nests, trying to impress a female, or trying to escape from the frigate birds that were harassing them for their nesting material.
Male frigate birds were all excited and showing their beautiful red pouches to the females that were flying over. This is the peak of the mating season and soon this will be over, so those who came at this time of the year had the chance to observe this spectacular courtship behavior, something never to be forgotten.
By 10:30 the heat and the sun already burnt our energies and it was time to go back to the ship to gear up for our last snorkel outing long the cliffs of this incredible island, where rays, fur seals, and even hammerhead sharks gave us their final show.
But the day was not over yet, and in the afternoon we went for a Zodiac ride along the cliffs. Dozens of red-billed tropicbirds were flying in circles above us with their very distinctive and loud call, part of their mating courtship, while striated herons and yellow crown night herons were ready to catch something to eat, and few male fur seals showed us their aggressive behavior prior to the mating season.
The landing site is known as Prince Philip's Steps, after the Duke of Edinburgh who visited Galápagos in the 1960s, a narrow fissure through the cliff top, where again many Nazca boobies and their babies, along with more red-footed boobies and frigate birds were waiting for us.
We followed the trail through a palo santo forest to a storm petrel colony, where our goal was to find hunting owls, that we indeed find! These short-eared owls are diurnal hunters here, occupying the ecological niche left by the Galápagos hawks that never colonized this island. Their main food consists of storm petrels that nest on the cracks of these old lava flows making themselves a perfect prey for the attentive owls ready to eat them.
The icing on the cake, by the end of the trail, was one owl that caught a storm petrel in front of us, and proceeded to have dinner in the most delicate way, while hundreds of pictures were taken as a final memory of an outstanding week.
