Travels to the Galápagos

Travels to the Galápagos

Thursday, February 14, 2002

Valentine's Day

Genovese

We crossed the equator overnight to reach Genovese, about 20 miles north of 0°, and will cross again when we go south tonight. My wife and I got up a little before sunrise to look for the Southern Cross, but it was too cloudy.

The Polaris entered Darwin Bay, which is a collapsed or eroded caldera of a dormant volcano on the south side of the island. Entering the Bay for a ship the size of the Polaris is a tricky maneuver, as most of the water in the Bay is rather shallow, and the channel is as shallow as 17 feet (5 m).

Genovese is noted for its sea birds, and is free of introduced species. There are no terrestrial reptiles, probably because Genovese is in the northeast part of the islands, while prevailing currents are southeast-to-northwest. There are, however, marine iguanas. The iguanas tend to be smaller here, as the ocean is less dense with nutrients.

Darwin Bay (which Darwin himself never visited) is three-quarters of a circle, perhaps one mile (1 1/2 km) in diameter. The "wall" of the bay comprises layered volcanic rock, ranging from about ten to about sixty feet (3 to 20 m) high. The ship navigated a slightly deeper channel in the Bay very slowly, finally coming to rest only about 200 feet (60 m) from a rock wall that rose about 60 feet (20 m) above the water.

During twilight, only a few birds were in flight - some gulls, a frigate or two. I could hear birds all around us, from nests that I knew must be covering the walls of the bay. As the sky became lighter towards sunrise, more and more birds took wing, including smaller ones I could not identify in the low light, both near the water's surface and higher in the air. More frigates and gulls took to the air by sunrise also.

Wow! The sun is up, and there are birds everywhere. Now, actually, it seems that most of the nests are on the land, rather than on faces of the cliffs as I had first supposed.

After breakfast we landed on a white, coralline beach, walked around it, and then up onto some older aa lava to a pair of navigation towers that help ships navigate those tricky waters. I'd noticed the same two towers earlier as we sailed in, with lights to guide the mariner. They are powered by solar panels.

There were many Nazca boobies on the beach and under the mangroves - adults, juveniles, and fluffy chicks.

Great frigates are very common here, as opposed to the magnificent frigates we have seen most of the rest of the week. Again, there were adults, juveniles, and fluffy chicks. The juveniles have a patch of white on their heads. The frigates' nest is made a couple of feet (60 cm) off the ground by bending a few mangrove branches together, and cementing the branches together with guano. The chick/juvenile must sit in the same spot for nine months as its parent feed it. If it does not stay in its nest, it will not be fed. Staying put is no guarantee, however. One juvenile frigate had been abandoned by its parents for reasons unknown. It died in place in its nest, unable to feed itself. The frigates are everywhere in the sky now, although some spots have higher densities than others. The frigate breeding season is just beginning. A few males are beginning to stretch out their red throat pouches. Two males in neighboring mangrove branches displayed fully inflated pouches, advertising to the females. (We saw no takers.) Frigates in the air fought over a couple of scraps of stolen food, both of which ultimately fell into the water. Juvenile frigates called for food from their parents.

Nazca boobies are the only boobies that practice siblicide. The three boobie species occupy different ecological niches. Blue-footed boobies (which we did not see here) typically lay three eggs, are the largest of the boobies here, will potentially raise all three chicks, and fish 0-4 miles out from the shore. They are the ones we've seen plunge diving earlier in the week. Nazca boobies lay two eggs, are intermediate in size, raise no more than one chick at a time, and fish 4-10 miles out. Red-footed boobies lay one egg, are the smallest, and fish 10-40 miles out. A number of Nazca boobies had built nests in the middle of a frigate colony, which would seem to tempt fate - both because of the likelihood of being intercepted when returning with food, and the potential exposure of chicks to frigate predators. But such intermingling of boobie and frigate nesting locations is apparently not that uncommon.

A pair of Nazcas engaged in courtship: the male picked up sticks to offer to the female, who took ones she liked. This behavior is a vestige of ancestral nest making, as they now lay eggs directly on the ground. The male whistles, and the female honks.

Swallow-tailed gulls are also common here, nesting on the ground, typically under mangroves. Mottled juveniles called for food.

The mangroves where we landed have torpedo-like seeds, perhaps seven inches (18cm) long and half an inch (1 cm) in diameter. (At Punta Cormoran, the mangrove seeds had resembled lima beans, and were sprouting profusely on the beach under the parent tree.)

There were several sea lions on the beach. Marine iguanas are smaller and less numerous here; warmer waters from the Panama current mean less algae.

The star of Genovese has to be the red-footed booby. It is actually the most common in the Galápagos, but is seen less frequently by many tourists for several reasons - it is found only in the northern islands, which are not visited as often by boats; its nests are scattered across the island, not limited to shores; and it does not fish close to shore. Population estimates: 180,000 - 250,000, compared to 10,000 - 20,000 for blue-footed boobies. Red-footed boobies have a blue or lavender beak, and prehensile, red, webbed feet that enable them to nest in mangrove trees, gripping the branches. There feathers are usually brown, although there is also a white phase in this species that I do not recall seeing myself. A juvenile will track a shiny object with its head, turning and nodding to follow, e.g., sunglasses. All animals on Genovese are unafraid of humans. Pirates avoided what was formerly called Tower Island as being too out-of-the way, and lacking in tortoises. There have never been introduced species here.

Small male yellow-tailed damselfish in tidal pools are highly territorial. They not only fend off one another, but they will also push away a small "intruder" rock dropped into the territory, their faces displaying white in the process. We saw a rare (for here) pectoral sandpiper (which is migratory), running along the sand like any of a number of shore birds will.

Tiny Fiddler Crabs (1 to 1½ cm, 1/2 to 2/3 in) were thick on many parts of the beach, but darted quickly into their holes as one approached. There were a few Galápagos mockingbirds on the shore.

As we have seen elsewhere (e.g., the sea turtle beach at Punta Cormoran), Sally Lightfoot crabs shun white sand, but love black lava rocks.

Large ground finches (two black males, one mottled juvenile) found seeds on the ground that were invisible to me, cracked them open, and ate their contents.

Large cactus finches moved from flower to flower on cacti to eat pollen, covering their heads in the process and thereby pollinating the yellow flowers as they visited. The cactus on Genovese, which otherwise resemble prickly pear cactus, has evolved very soft spines. In the absence of herbivores that eat them, and in the absence of insect pollinators, soft spines may encourage pollination by finches. They feel like thick hair to the touch.

Today was overcast and warm in the morning, mostly sunny and hot in the afternoon. I hear that March is even hotter in the Galápagos.

We were fortunate to make a very rare sighting: not one, but a pair of lava gulls, positively identified by our esteemed guide Carlos. Estimates are rough, but there may be only about 400 of these birds in the world. To a casual observer, they appear similar in size and shape to the swallow-tailed gull, except that the entire body is a dark gray, including the legs. I am told that this is a rare sighting even on Genovese, and would be considered a major "bag" by avid birders. I almost felt sorry that this sighting was wasted on me, when it would mean so much more to a real birder.

On this walk we met three scientists (probably graduate students) from U. Mass Amherst, who were studying the correlation between beak size and songs in finches. So far, they hadn't had much luck capturing finches in mist nets - maybe it's not the best time of year. We had earlier seen their camp on the beach - they're living off canned food, and have five gallon containers of water. We hear that water is the principal limiting factor on such expeditions.

We went directly from the beach walk to snorkeling along the caldera wall, going counterclockwise, starting from Prince Phillip's Steps. The wall was quite steep, dropping away rapidly. The water was slightly clouded by algae, so visibility was OK. The water was warm, with occasional cooler spots. Fish sightings would have amazed us had this been our first snorkel, but by contrast to earlier snorkel outings it was less dramatic: King angelfish, Moorish idols, yellow-tailed surgeonfish, parrotfish. schools of thousands of small, black-striped Salimas. I saw a three-foot ray that had colors similar to those of a manta. My son saw a group of ten golden eagle rays, but I missed them. Others in our group saw a ten-foot manta.

I saw a barracuda trailing the Salimas, but didn't point it out to my daughter, so she wouldn't get scared. A sea lion swam around my son, my wife and me a few times, very close to us. (My daughter was back on the Zodiac by then, saying that she was cold.)

In mid-afternoon we made a dry landing on Prince Phillip's Steps. The name suggests that Prince Phillip's Steps might be something grand carved for visiting royalty, but it is actually a fissure in the lava, with just a few concrete steps and wooden hand rails added by the National Park to aid visitors. The steps took us to the top of Genovese, which is essentially flat (at a resolution of one meter), aside from the occasional fissure that plunges down no-telling-how-far. The primary vegetation was palo santo trees, with occasional Galápagos morning glory, and even more occasional lava cactus.

The ground was quite dry, as this rainy season has not yet seen much rain. Most palo santo trees are still dead-looking, but a few had put out green leaves and yellow flowers.

The main denizens on the top of the island were Nazca and red-footed boobies (no blue-footed boobies here). The former nest on the ground, and the latter made actual nests in trees. Popular red-foot nesting sites are clearly marked by large piles of sticks and guano underneath. Nazca sites are distinguished by surrounding white rings formed of guano.

All stages of courtship and nesting were on display for both types of boobies on Genovese. The Nazca's calls are whistles by males, and honks by females. Their nests may contain two eggs, one egg, an abandoned egg, one chick, two chicks (one of which is larger), naked small chicks, small downy chicks, a large downy chick , a fledgling, a juvenile. A juvenile feeds by sticking its beak into a parent's beak. They cry loudly for food.

The contents of the red-footed booby's nest are similar, except that it will have no more than one egg, chick, or juvenile per nest. We did not see the red-footed boobies feeding, and I'm sorry to say that I can't remember male and female calls.

Both kinds engage in nest building, either real nests made of sticks in the case of the red-footed booby, or vestigial nests for the Nazca, with sticks and small rocks passed from one mate to the other.

We saw a few dead, dehydrated Nazca chicks lying outside their guano rings. Apparently a Nazca parent will not feed a chick outside the white ring, and instead just ignores it completely. Since Nazcas nest on the ground and red-foots in trees, there are occasional instances of one nesting right above the other.

Other birds we saw on Genovese included the Galápagos mockingbird, sharp-beaked ground finch, large ground finch, and great frigates. The frigates were also in all stages: chicks, juveniles, a few males with inflated pouches (although it was early for this behavior). Off the top of the island, on the ocean side (away from the caldera), flying: a few red-billed tropicbirds, Galápagos storm petrels by the thousands, returning from the sea only to breed (the world's smallest true sea bird), red-footed boobies, and ever the frigates on patrol.

Back inland: Galápagos doves with incredible bright blue eye rings and red/green iridescent necks, and two short-eared owls, one of which was hiding in a partly collapsed lava tube, and one of which was out in the open. The latter puffed out its feathers, making it look quite fat. The owls are well camouflaged, brown with white specks to blend into brown lava specked with guano. One of the owls was a littler darker than the other. The owls have very stout legs. Where hawks are not present, as on Genovese, owls are diurnal. Where hawks are present on other islands, the owls are nocturnal.

Near the owls was a lava formation on the ground that superficially resembled the backbone of a dinosaur, but of course the Galápagos are far too young to hold any dinosaur fossils.

We passed a juvenile Nazca trapped under some branches, squawking back and forth with a parent outside the branches. I'm not sure I understand all these rules, but our guide was willing to try to move branches out of the way, but not to pick up the bird to help it. We left the poor bird trapped, but this story had a happy ending. By the following week's Polaris visit, it was out and safe again. [Add link to expeditions.com log for 02/21/02.]

On the panga ride back to the ship, we cruised the base of the cliff. Our sightings included brown pelicans, red-footed boobies, swallow-tailed gulls, red-billed tropicbirds, frigates, sea lions, fur sea Lions, marine iguanas, Sally Lightfoot crabs, Nazca boobies, and yellow-crowned night-herons. We saw two red-billed tropicbirds in nests in the wall of the sheer cliff facing the caldera. They are beautiful birds, with red bills, a black bar across the eyes, mostly-white plumage, and two very long, thin tail feathers.

My son had gone snorkeling while the rest of us went up the steps. He spotted some tuna that excited him - about two feet long, with gold spots on their sides.

Before sunset, the Polaris carefully left Darwin Bay, and sailed towards the north side of Genovese for a dinner stop. There was a ship-wide announcement of a detour to see dolphins spotted to the north. Instead of dolphins, we encountered a pod of 100 or so melon-headed whales, which we watched until it was too dark. Apparently it is not common to see these whales, at least not in the Galápagos. They are about five to six feet long, and are nearly black, with some paler grey markings on the sides and belly. They superficially appear to be similar in shape to dolphins, but have a round head instead of the beak that is typical of dolphins. The whales entertained us for half an hour or so. Their behavior was generally similar to that of the Common Dolphins, but they were not as quick and were not quite as playful. They engaged in no stampedes, but they were curious about us. Some behaviors we saw: bow-riding, spy-hopping, four to six jumping out of the water in unison, jumping all the way out of the water, a couple of calves with mothers, and swimming from rather far off directly to our ship to check us out. When it was too dark to see them any more, we returned to our original course.

Out of any order at all - here are some sea creatures that I identified on a Galápagos fish chart as things I saw while snorkeling this week, but don't recall having written down before: many types of parrotfish, bumphead parrotfish, flag cabrilla, blemmy, Hieroglyphic hawkfish, a streamer hogfish (this last was a so-called "supermale," though I'm not sure what that means).

Overnight we sailed to Bartolome, a small island to the east of Santiago, and geologically a part of Santiago. Santiago, called James Island in Darwin's day, is where Darwin spent almost half of his 1835 on-shore time in the Galápagos, nine days.

Map of the Islands (from the Emory Law School website)