The Nazca boobies were nesting everywhere. I counted 31 nests with eggs and hatchlings, 10 nests with downy chicks with no black feathers, 23 nests with downy chicks with black feathers and 62 adults not nesting. And this was not on the entire island, just on both sides of the trail until we reached the "lava ditch", and then only inland parallel to it.
This is the way we can give a hand to the National Park Service and to the Charles Darwin Research Station. The naturalist guides are the only ones that go to the same visitor sites every week, and so are the only ones that can do a census on bird populations. So, we count penguins and cormorants on Fernandina, lava gulls in Darwin Bay and Nazca boobies, Red-footed boobies and frigate birds in the area of Prince Phillip's steps.
We are glad to see this appears to be a successful year for sea birds, as we find more and more hatchlings every week.
