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Bird's-Eye View - Galapagos a dream come true for any nature lover
Phil Dickinson Photo
Blue-footed boobies do their courtship dance on the Galapagos Islands.
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Published: July 3, 2009
The Galapagos Islands are a dream destination for birders and other nature lovers. Formed by volcanic activity and known for Charles Darwin, giant tortoises and blue-footed boobies, the islands sit on the Equator about 600 miles off the west coast of South America. Because of their isolation, the islands offer a natural laboratory for the study of the flora and fauna.
My wife, Mary, and I traveled to Ecuador in March with a group from Associated Artists of Winston-Salem. Mary urged this birder to add the Galapagos to the itinerary. The economy be damned, we booked our flight from Quito and a four-day cruise on the 16-passenger Galapagos Voyager.
Tourism booms; access limited
A part of Ecuador, the entire archipelago is designated a national park and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Away from the few towns, island visitors have access only to designated sites and must have a guide. The Galapagos now receive up to one million visitors annually, and controls have become necessary to protect wildlife and habitat. Upon arrival, we paid our $100 park fee and met our guide, Williams.
Galapagos tours generally start with a short ferry and bus trip to the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz. Lonesome George and other giant tortoises are the feature attraction there. However, our group stopped on the way at a highland ranch, where we walked past tortoises in the wild and saw our first Darwin finches. These included the woodpecker finch, which uses a twig to open seed pods.
The Galapagos are home to 13 species of finches. Exemplifying Darwin's theory of natural selection, all 13 likely descended from a single species and over generations developed distinct physical attributes that suit their particular environments. Thus, three species of ground finch have heavy beaks of various sizes to split hard seeds, although cactus finches have thin beaks to forage for insects they find on prickly pear.
The islands have only 58 species of bird, but 28 are found nowhere else. In addition to the finches, there are flightless cormorants, lava gulls, swallow-tailed gulls, the world's entire nesting population of waved albatross and more. Think penguins live only in the Antarctic? The equatorial Galapagos have their own.
Also, the birds and other wildlife have little fear of human encroachment. We constantly had to side-step blue-footed and Nazca boobies, land and marine iguanas and sea lions as our guide made sure that we stayed on the marked trails. The animals love to pose for photographs, too; no telephoto lens required.
The blue-footed booby is a tourist favorite. The name booby comes from the Spanish "bobo" for dunce. On Espanola Island, we watched these birds perform their courtship dance. Males and females plod their bright turquoise feet up and down, flap their wings, point their beaks upward and exchange twigs as gifts.
Nazca boobies also nest on Espanola. At Wake Forest University, David Anderson, professor of biology, and Terri Maness, adjunct assistant professor of biology, study the Nazcas' breeding strategies. Among other things, they have discovered a high divorce rate. "Our study population has 50 percent more males than females, creating the opportunity for females to trade a current mate ... for a ‘refreshed' non-breeding male," Maness reports.
For me the Galapagos were mostly about the birds, but there was much more. At South Playa and Espanola, sea lions lolled on the beach, on the rocks and under prickly pear trees with the iguanas or orange Sally Lightfoot crabs. In the water, we snorkeled alongside sea turtles, manta rays and tropical fishes. Yes, prickly pears there are 15-foot trees -- a survival strategy to outlast hungry reptiles on the ground.
On our last day, we arrived at Sleeping Lion, a rock formation off the coast of San Cristobal. Williams rousted us out of bed at dawn to see the sun hit the cliffs, graceful red-billed tropicbirds and male magnificent frigatebirds puffing out their scarlet red chests to impress prospective mates. It was a spectacular end to a great experience. There is no bad time of year, if you decide to go. We were there during rainy season but never saw a drop.
The Audubon Saturday birdwalk, set for July 11, is closer to home at the Bethabara wetland. Meet at 8 a.m. at the day-care center at the intersection of Reynolda and Bethabara Park roads. Bring binoculars, hat, water and bug repellant. For more information, contact Shelley Rutkin at shelleyr@windstream.net.
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