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A dream come true: Galapagos 1.

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Subject: A dream come true: Galapagos 1.
From: "Wim Vader" <>
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 11:17:28 +0100

                                        A DREAM COME TRUE. 1. GALAPAGOS BEACHES


In many many years I have dreamt of visiting the Galapagos islands and watching 
all those wonderfully tame birds and reptiles. I had devoured Bryan Nelson's 
book on his year of seabird studies camping on Genovesa, as well as the Grants' 
masterful and lucid 'The beak of the finch', about their long-term evolutionary 
studies on the finches of Daphne Major. I have, moreover,  myself taught 
evolution at our university for many years, and also there the Galapagos 
islands regularly play a role.

Five years ago I decided that I'd take Riet to the Galapagos one day and now in 
2006 it was finally going to happen. We are booked with Naturetrek's two weeks 
cruise on the schooner Cachalote I. The group consists of 14 people, with us 
two the only foreigners, and with Cliff Waller as the experienced leader. We 
flew from London via Miami to Quito and arrived safely, although our luggage 
did not; in fact it did not catch up with us until 4 days later, when a panga 
(Zodiac) full of bags and suitcases appeared suddenly in the harbour at St 
Cristobal, an extremely welcome sight! In the meantime we had flown to Baltra, 
all bought sun-hats at the airport there and boarded our most comfortable 'home 
away from home' the Cachalote. Here we also met our most knowledgeable local 
guide Gabriel, who most litterally 'kept us on the right path'---he noticed 
every little deviation from the black-and-white poles of the official paths and 
called us back at once..


That first afternoon, hot and sunny like most days here, we experienced our 
first 'wet landing': the pangas deposited us on a nice sandy beach on S. Cruz 
Island, Los Bachos. Ninetythree percent of the Galapagos is national park, and 
the areas open to the public are strictly prescribed and demarcated. In 
addition, on many of these sandy beaches marine turtles make their nests just 
above high water and these ought of course not to be disturbed. These sandy 
beaches are generally surprisingly steep and energy-rich; there is a tidal 
amplitude of a few metres and above MHW the large pits dug by the turtles are 
everywhere, as are their tractor-like tracks down the beach. In the upper half 
of the intertidal there are often quite large numbers of the swift ghost crabs 
Ocypode, here surprisingly colourful and as always with their telltale funny 
stalked eyes. Most beaches also have loafing California sea lions, as tame and 
approachable as all wildlife here, and looking as if there are always in for a 
game. In fact they maake the impression that life as such is only a wonderful 
game! Unfortunately by now most beaches also have several groups of tourists 
simultaneously, even if they usually are kept apart as well as possible. Some 
of those people are clearly only interested in getting as closely as possible 
to the animals and if possible petting them (strictly forbidden, of course); 
this often does distract a little from the feeling of being in paradise, I must 
confess.

This first day everything was new and wonderful for us, even the wet landings. 
We watched in awe as Blue-footed Boobies dived sleekly like spears closely 
inshore, while the somewhat more clumsy-looking Brown Pelicans made their 
floppy dives in even more shallow water, so I was almost afraid they would bend 
their beaks! They are very efficient fishermen, in spite of their seeming 
clumsiness, and very often caught quite large fish. In that case the ever 
watchful Common Noddies (those 'tern negatives', black with a whitish cap)came 
flying in at once, usually landing and perching on the pelican's head, as I 
have earlier seen Heermann's Gulls do in S. California. I had earlier seen 
these noddies harassing fishing Audubon's Shearwaters, and they even show 
interest in the  diving boobies; they are clearly only out after 'spillage', as 
the pelicans gulp their large prey whole. High above, all the time watchful and 
somewhat sinister dark shapes hover overhead, the Magnificent Frigatebirds; a 
few are usually also perched on the rigging of our ship.

On the crest of the beach a tall Great Blue Heron stands statuesquely still, a 
good example of the tameness of the wildlife here, as he does not bother about 
the visitors at all. Even the northern migrants seem somehow to be affected by 
the 'paradise atmosphere': the Semipalmated Plovers, Turnstones, Whimbrels and 
'peeps' (here Semipalmated and Western) are quite approachable. Thes latter we 
found in the brackish lagoon 'behind the beach', where also two flaming 
orange-pink Flamingos fed, again quite unconcernedly, while a pair of elegant 
Black-necked Stilts posed for their photographs.

Most beaches, also this one, have some areas of rocky black lava intertidally. 
This shows very little algal growth, but plenty of the showy and colourful 
large Sally Lightfoot crabs. In addition to the migrant shorebirds and the 
resident American Oystercatchers, one also finds surprisingly often vivid 
splashes of yellow among these black cinders: the Yellow Warblers, ubiquitous 
on these islands, often forage intertidally. Now and then there also small 
herons here, once more ridiculously tame, and only concerned about their 
chances of stalking prey. Usually this is the endemic Lava Heron, almost 
disappearing among the lava stones, but also its slightly more colourful close 
relative, the Striated Heron, occurs. The two seem to occupy almost the same 
niche here.

The second day, at Cerro Brujo beach on S. Cristobal, the general impression 
was much the same. We added Least Sandpiper to the list of peeps and this 
light-legged midget would turn out to be the miost common peep of our tour. We 
also found the first of many Wandering Tattlers. We also surprised a pair of 
oystercatchers at the nest, changing the guard seemingly not at all bothering 
about the batteries of cameras around.

On the third day we visited the fine sandy beach at Gardiners Bay at Española, 
clearly also a favourite with the sea lions, which were lying around 
everywhere, each group with a large 'beachmaster' ferociously barking out in 
the surf. On this beach it is impossible not to mention landbirds. Not only did 
several of the colourful and (you guessed it) very tame Galapagos Doves dig in 
the sand here, but the stars were the endemic and large Hood Mockingbirds. They 
also forage a lot on the beach and dig in the sand with their strong and long 
curved bills, and they are ridiculously tame and curious, even more so than the 
mockingbirds elsewhere on the islands (there are 4 species): they flock around 
visitors and hope primarily for water, a resource in short supply on this very 
dry island.


                                                                Wim Vader, 
Tromsø Museum
                                                                9037 Tromsø, 
Norway
                                                                

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