Española
An enchanted day, beginning with pastel light on the island of Española, where marine iguanas captured our imaginations and lenses, sea lions basked and re-oxygenated in the sunlight and waved albatross clacked and danced with their mates, reacquainting themselves after months at sea.
We find ourselves enchanted with the animals in this island place. Surprised by marine iguanas swimming along the rocky shoreline at low tide, we look down instead of up, on the cliffs where waved albatross jump off the lava edge into the wind and take flight. Lava lizards doing push ups in a pattern unique to Española defend their territories while a Galápagos hawk surveys for a meal, which it can spot at a hundred yards.
Birds on wing, challenge our photographic skills with their enchanted personalities. Albatross and frigatebirds, are the easiest targets for cameras, as they soar and glide. Nazca and blue-footed boobies, being slightly smaller beat their wings at a higher frequency, making them more difficult to capture coming into the frame. Swallow-tailed gulls, the smallest sea bird found here at the cliff face, are the most difficult to photograph, as they dip and wheel on the thermals.
Sailors from all over the world knew these islands as “Las Encantadas,” the enchanted isles. We ourselves felt the magic, on this our first full day here in this enchanted place called Galápagos.
An enchanted day, beginning with pastel light on the island of Española, where marine iguanas captured our imaginations and lenses, sea lions basked and re-oxygenated in the sunlight and waved albatross clacked and danced with their mates, reacquainting themselves after months at sea.
We find ourselves enchanted with the animals in this island place. Surprised by marine iguanas swimming along the rocky shoreline at low tide, we look down instead of up, on the cliffs where waved albatross jump off the lava edge into the wind and take flight. Lava lizards doing push ups in a pattern unique to Española defend their territories while a Galápagos hawk surveys for a meal, which it can spot at a hundred yards.
Birds on wing, challenge our photographic skills with their enchanted personalities. Albatross and frigatebirds, are the easiest targets for cameras, as they soar and glide. Nazca and blue-footed boobies, being slightly smaller beat their wings at a higher frequency, making them more difficult to capture coming into the frame. Swallow-tailed gulls, the smallest sea bird found here at the cliff face, are the most difficult to photograph, as they dip and wheel on the thermals.
Sailors from all over the world knew these islands as “Las Encantadas,” the enchanted isles. We ourselves felt the magic, on this our first full day here in this enchanted place called Galápagos.
