I think I have enough footage of sea lions and marine iguanas, but I was still lacking bird footage, particularly boobies and frigate birds. To cover as much of the island as possible, three of us hired a taxi driver. Our first stop was Loberia las Negritas. We jumped out of the truck and started our first hike. Sea lions covered the beach and marine iguanas covered the lava rocks. Boobies and frigates were also soaring overhead, but I wanted to see them on land, and see lots of them!
We continued our hike to a sea cliff. From a distance we saw a few boobies perched on the rocks. As we got closer, we realized we also found a small colony of swallow-tailed gulls. This was a great find! You may be thinking that sea gulls are no big deal, but this one sure is. It is the only nocturnal gull in the world, meaning they are the only gulls that are active in the night. I also found out an interesting fact about them. When the male is courting the female, he regurgitates food for her! What do you think about that girls?!
A couple of boobies were in the area, but not enough to write home about. We soon hiked back to the vehicle.
Our next stop was to Galapaguera de Cerro Colorado, a tortoise sanctuary. This place provided a natural habitat for about 60 San Cristobal tortoises. This is a different species then we had seen on the island of Santa Cruz. I got some good footage. This will be useful to compare and contrast the differences in the tortoises’ shells.
Then we headed to Playa de Puerto Chino on the other side of the island. We walked along a beautiful beach and hiked up onto a sea cliff. There was a brown pelican on a nest of eggs, and a couple of blue-foots here and there. From the sea cliff we were able to see some sea turtles. I believe they were Pacific green turtles. Apparently these turtles used to be hunted, but hunting of them was banned, and the population is doing well today.
The day was winding down, and there was one more place we wanted to hike: Frigatebird Hill. To this point, I had only seen the frigate bird in flight. When we got to the top, we were able to see about fifty frigate birds perched in the trees. We were able to get really close to them. Unfortunately, none of the males had their throats inflated, however, the picture below shows the male's red flap of skin that inflates. This was a little disheartening, but I got my footage of frigate birds for you! We snapped our last photo of the day at the Charles Darwin statue that rests on Frigatebird Hill.
So my day off was very busy, but also well spent. I could use another couple of weeks here on the islands!
