Day 8: Española - Monday January 29th 2018
Española is the most southerly of the Galapago islands and is, geologically, one of the oldest, with few residual volcanic features. It hosts breeding colonies of Waved Albatross, Blue-footed and Nazca Boobies and has its own form of Mockingbird, Large Cactus Finch, Lava Lizard and Marine Iguana. There are two landing sites - a wet landing on the beach at Elizabeth Bay on the north shore and an awkward dry landing at Suarez Point at the western end of the island. We visited the former in the morning and the latter in the afternoon - and some of us (myself included) spent a happy hour or so snorkelling along the rocky coast of Gardener Island (near Elizabeth Bay) in between these two landings.
The Española Lava Lizard is the largest of the 7 Galapagos lava lizard species. The adult males had a distinctive black throat and in the adult female the usual red throat patch often extends of over the whole head - and in the individual shown right onto the dorsal part of the neck and upper part of the forelimbs as well.
|
The Española Mockingbird occurs only on Española and the nearby Gardener island. It has a healthy, thriving, population and we were met by several of them on the beach at Elizabeth Bay. It is slightly larger than the Galapagos and San Cristobal Mockingbirds, with a slightly longer, heavier bill - but these are features difficult to judge in the field as you will never see them together. The distinguishing plumage features are: narrow, whitish collar; heavy streaking on the flanks and breast sides, often extended into a diffuse breast band; dark malar stripe; iris hazel (which did seem distinctly paler than that of either Galapagos or San Cristobal Mockingbirds).
|
These images of the Darwin's Finches (below) give an indication of the range of bill size displayed by the 15 (or so) species found on the islands. The Warbler Finches have by far the finest (ie narrowest and shallowest) bill; the bill of Large Ground Finch is even more massive than that of the Española Cactus Finch shown here. See Darwin's Finches page for more information.
After a couple of hours wandering and viewing the wildlife on the beach we returned to the Beluga. Those of us who went snorkelling saw numerous fish and we had a sea-lion swimming amongst us; others went for a panga ride around Gardener Island. I had been getting used to using my new toy - a Go-Pro, kindly given to me by my children for my recent 60th birthday - below is a video still that gives some idea of the profusion of life close to the rocks here.
After lunch and a short voyage to Suarez Point we made a supposedly dry landing - but the tide was high and lapping over the landing area - so we had to time our exit from the panga to avoid being caught in the swell. Nearby the landing area were numerous Marine Iguanas. From here we followed a walking trail which passed through a Nazca Booby colony and on towards the sea cliffs on the southern portion of the Suarez Point prominence (see satellite image above). Here we found a blowhole from which seawater erupted intermittently and several Waved Albatross flying around - this was the only day on which we saw albatross.
Below is a gallery of images showing the vegetation and scenery on the Suarez Point walking trail - click on an image to enlarge and scroll through.
Below is a gallery of images showing the vegetation and scenery on the Suarez Point walking trail - click on an image to enlarge and scroll through.
Although the population estimate for Galapagos Fur Seal is only marginally less than that for Galapagos Sea Lion, we only saw the Fur Seal on 3 days of the tour and in very small numbers. |
The Marine Iguana subspecies (venustissimus) found on Española is said to be the most brightly coloured subspecies - it certainly seemed to be the reddest.
Interesting fact: the Marine Iguana is the only marine lizard in the world. |