Our visitors today enjoyed wonderful weather, with the sun shining high up in a fantastic clear blue sky. Not only were the atmospheric conditions almost perfect; King Neptune provided us with unusually calm waters for this season. With all these circumstances, we had a long Zodiac cruise in the morning, along the cliffs of Punta Vicente Roca, located on the northwestern tip of Isabela Island. This place was so spectacular today that we spent almost two hours enjoying the beauty of the geological formations and the abundance of wildlife. Sea lions, green pacific turtles, boobies, brown noddy terns, Sally light-foot crabs, flightless cormorants, Galapagos penguins, and even the odd giant oceanic sunfish were seen in this location.
In today's picture you can appreciate an example of what we all experienced. A couple of brown noddy terns perching peacefully on a flat ledge of volcanic tuff. Brown noddy terns (Anous stolidus) are very small and delicate birds. Their whitish foreheads and white eye-rings are trademarks in the adults that contrast with the rest of the dark body. Their peculiar name, noddy, comes from the fact that the courtship of these birds involves fast head-nodding, and low guttural growls. Brown noddy terns nest on sea cliffs in small colonies and in shallow caves. These beautiful birds are widespread in the Galapagos and are found in most tropical and subtropical seas.
