We saw so many amazing animals, I've decided just to put a brief description, and a lot of photos, of each! For further pictures check out the full album on Picasa (click
here for my album and
here for Elisabeth´s album).
The Galapagos Hawk
This beautiful hawk is on top of the food chain on the Galapagos. We saw him on a beach on island Espinola, where he was patrolling for baby sea lions, sea lion placentas, baby blue-footed boobies, and other mid sized, tasty animals! It was pretty amazing walking the beach with him/her, as it would swoop down inches from our head as it was cruising for lunch.
Giant Land Tortoises
There were14 species of giant land Tortoises on the Galapagos, but 2 are extinct and one more is on the verge. Lonesome George, the last remaining tortoise of his particular species, is over 70 years old and when he dies his species will be extinct. The Tortoise has no natural predators, and when humans showed up in the Galapagos they used the Tortoises as pets and as a source of fresh meat. Tortoise population is down to 30k, from 120k 200 years ago, but they are still all over some of the islands! When you drive the main road (over the middle of Santa Cruz island) you can look out your window and see giant Tortoises all over, just munching on shrubbery! It is the equivalent of seeing a Deer in Marin County or a Raccoon in San Francisco.
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| A Tortoise close up |
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| Elisabeth and a new friend! |
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| Lonesome George, all by himself... |
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| Elisabeth as a turtle! |
Blue Footed Boobies
These Boobies are one of the Galapago´s most famous animals. They look sort of like a seagull, except they have bright blue (or red, or grey) feet. They are completely un-intimidated by humans and you can literally get as close as you want to them (but don´t touch! Against the Galapagos rules!). We saw a number of couples (they are monogamous) with babies or eggs. Very cute! They are also really good fisherman, and as opposed to the Pelicans (who belly flop into the water), the boobies make spectacular dives into the water with no trace of a splash.
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| Blue Footed Boobie with 2 eggs. |
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| Parent with baby bird. |
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| Adorable baby Boobie. |
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| 2 baby Boobies. |
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| Where is its head? |
Vampire Finch
The Galapagos is covered with birds, but this one takes the cake for most disgusting. All he eats is blood and we saw him eating a sea lion placenta. He was super aggressive and was chasing away birds 3 or 4 times as big as him!
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| Vampire Finch enjoying a placenta. |
Sea Lions!!!
These stinky creatures are all over every beach and rock covered coastal area on the Galapagos. The babies are absolutely adorable (we literally took hundreds of photos of JUST the babies!), the females are pretty but don´t care about humans, and the alpha males are big and make sure to chase you out of their territory. Every day we saw tons of them!
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| 2 babies who are very interested in me. |
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| Elisabeth giving an air hug to a pup! |
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| A pup nursing |
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| Mom and pup. |
The Waved Albatross
Theses guys were HUGE and not the most attractive of birds. The adults have a 7.5 foot wingspan! On the Galapagos you can see them pairing off and raising their young, the babies hanging in the nests, and the adults trying to take flight (pretty hilarious). To take flight these giant birds need a long runway where they run and try and flap their wings to create some lift. Unfortunately for them, they usually can´t do it this way, and instead have to waddle up to 1km to a cliff edge where they jump off (and fly away).
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| Adolescent, talk about a gawky bird! |
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| 2 adults doing a mating dance. |
Iguanas (Marine Iguana, Christams Iguana, Land Iguana)
The various types of Iguanas give the Galapagos a some what prehistoric feel. They all have a fairly similar body structure, with a few slight variations. One of the variations is the Christmas Iguana. It munches on red and green algae in the ocean and when it does so turns red and green -- like a Christmas tree! There is also a Land Iguana, which, as the name indicates lives on land not in the sea. Finally, there is a Marine Iguana which swims in the ocean to cool off and get its food! Jason and I swam with this type of Iguana on our first day, incredible experience. We also where there during mating season when the biggest, baddest male herds as many females as he can into an area and mates with them.
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| Marine Iguana |
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| Land Iguana |
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| Marine Iguana |
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| A harem of females for some lucky male. |
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| A Marine Iguana contemplating going into the ocean. |
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| Christmas Iguana! |
Magnificent Frigate
We had been looking forward to seeing the Magnificent Frigate for most of our cruise. He is a beautiful black bird that has a giant pouch under his beak that is a beautiful red color. When the male of the species is trying to get a mate, he puffs it up and shows the lady birds his wonderful red pouch. Really amazing.
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| A male Frigate trying to impress some ladies. |
Other Land Animals
Here are some other photos of various land animals we saw.
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| Crab. These guys were all over the place! |
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| Flamingo! |
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| Night Gull |
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| Vermillion Fly Catcher, male. Endangered. |
Bahia Post Office
The Bahia Post Office is one of the oldest traditions on the Galapagos. Sailors sailing one direction would stop here and leave letters and packages for back home with the hope that some sailor going the other way would pick it up and deliver it for them. The tradition is still alive today as tourists leave postcards that they hope other tourists will pick up and deliver for them. I know one lucky dog back in San Francisco that has a postcard coming her way!
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| The post office. |
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| The post office in Elisabeth´s cool Sepia mode. |
The Beaches
One of the coolest parts of the Galapagos was all the beaches we were able to visit. We saw beaches with red sand, white sand, yellow sand, gravel beaches, rock beaches, beaches that had sand as fine as talcum powder...
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| Red sand beach. |
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| White sand beach, that had talcum powder esq sand, and an Iguana! |
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