Day 11: Genovesa - Thursday February 1st 2018
Differences between male Great and Magnificent Frigatebird were described on Day 7. Adult female Great Frigatebirds have a white breast extending to the throat and a red eye-ring; in Magnificent the breast is also white but the throat is black and the eye-ring is blue. Juvenile Great Frigatebirds usually show a pale orange to the breast and head of variable extent; these areas being all white in juvenile Magnificent. Juveniles take 4 years to mature and go through a range of intermediate plumages such that specific identification can be problematic in subadults.
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Overnight we journeyed into the northern hemisphere and on to Genovesa. At dawn we were in the sheltered inlet of Darwin Bay, formed from a submerged crater. Genovesa is the most isolated of the islands on the tourist itinerary and is home to several species/forms that we did not see elsewhere. There are two landing sites in Darwin Bay. In the morning we had a wet landing on the beach; from here we followed a trail through a Great Frigatebird and Red-footed Booby Colony. In the afternoon we had a dry landing a Prince Philip's Steps (arrowed in white on the satellite image, left); from here we crossed to the southern sea cliffs where the highlight (for me, at least) was an enormous colony of Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrel, but there were many other delights.......
Apart from their red feet, Red-footed Boobys differ from other Boobys by nesting in trees (Nazca and Blue-footed Boobys nest on the ground). There are two morphs: 95% of the Galapagos population are 'brown morph', 5% are 'white-morph'. Adult male and female plumages are similar. Juveniles are wholly brown and have dark feet. |
There are only 4 forms of Darwins Finch that occur on Genovesa - this, in itself, was an aid to identification (compared with 9 forms on Santa Cruz for example). We saw 3 forms we had not seen previously on our tour: Large Ground Finch, Genovesa (Large) Cactus Finch and Sharp-beaked Ground Finch. |
The Marine Iguana of Genovesa is the smallest subspecies (nanus) and is largely black. There are no Lava Lizards on Genovesa (the only main island from which they are absent).
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Genovesa has its own subspecies of the Galapagos Mockingbird (bauri). It has more distinct mantle streaks, more heavily streaked flanks and a darker crown than other subspecies.
At the end of our morning visit we did some snorkelling from the beach. The water was a bit more murky here and there was far less to see than on previous viewings of the underwater world. In the afternoon we landed at Prince Phillip's Steps (apparently the steps were constructed to allow Prince Philip to visit this part of the island in 1965 (or 1981?). Along the southern sea-cliffs we saw a large colony of the endemic Wedge-rumped (or Galapagos) Storm-Petrels, I estimated that we saw 10,000 birds. This species is unusual, for a storm-petrel, in that it visits the colony by day - most species stay at sea all day and only return to the colony at night. |
Once back on the Beluga we journeyed back south. We saw our first Madeiran Storm-petrel and our first whale of the trip (when asked Rissel stated quite confidently that it was a Bryde's Whale - but he didn't have his binoculars on, can't have noted the melon-headed appearance when it breached and didn't see my photos of the dorsal fin) - Alison and I think it was a Cuvier's Beaked Whale. At around dusk we assembled on the bridge to celebrate crossing the equator and returned to the southern hemisphere.