What a great day!
Today we spent the day on Española Island, where we had a great time because of all the activity going on. It seems that this it is going to be a good year for nesting birds. The blue footed boobies, which have made various failed attempts at nesting in the last couple of years, have come back to Punta Suarez, which is traditionally one of the largest colonies in Galapagos. It was truly amazing to see so many of them dancing, which is an important part of their courtship. The males were lifting their incredible blue feet from side to side, using the coloration to impress the females around them: we had a lot of fun!
We then spent the afternoon at Gardner Bay, a beautiful beach made up of white organic sand, in the company of a large number of California sea lions. The sea lion pups in the area seemed just as fascinated with all our younger guests as the young guests were with the pups, and they frolicked in the shallows together for a long time. Later on, a juvenile Galapagos hawk landed just six feet away from us, and started eating a piece of fish that it found on the beach, right in front of our eyes. It then gave us all the chance to get a good picture, and many guests refused to believe that it was not on the Polaris payroll as it started modeling for our picture. It later decided that enough was enough and took off. Beautiful bird!
