GALAPAGOS, A DREAM COME TRUE. 4. GENOVESA, ANOTHER
SEABIRD ISLAND
Because of a minor mishap (our Cachalote got rammed midships by another tourist
ship with a crabbing anchor, necessitating repairs on S. Cruz) our schedule
got changed, so that we did the long trek to the northern island of Genovesa
(Tower), where Bryan Nelson did his famous seabird work in the sixties, first
at the end of our cruise, a fitting climax it turned out. We arrived after 10
hrs sailing from South Plaza, a less bumpy ride than first feared and anchored
in the sunken caldera, together with five other smaller and larger cruise
ships. In the morning the frigatebirds in the rigging had been replaced by a
long line of Red-footed Boobies; the frigatebirds at Genovesa are Great
Frigatebirds, pelagic feeders.
The steep inned walls of the caldera furnish nesting places to lots of the
beautiful Swallow-tailed Gulls and a few of the still more elegant Red-billed
Tropicbirds, while Fur Seals loafed on the lavablocks at high water. We climbed
up to the top via the famous Prince Philip's stairs, constructed on the
occasion of his visit in 1965, and emerged in a seabird-wonderland of a
somewhat unexpected type at the top. Much of the lavaground here is covered
with palo santo or incense trees; our guide Gabriel told us that two weeks ago
they still had been mostly bare, but recent rains had made a big difference,
and by now the trees were in full leaf and I also saw some (small) flowers. At
least two of the principal seabird species nesting here, the Great Frigatebird
(no Magnificent Frigatebirds here; there is deep water all round Genovesa, and
therefore few inshore feeders, also the Blue-footed Boobies and Brown Pelicans
are scarce here) and the small Red-footed Booboes, nest primarily in the palo
santo trees. The boobies are surprisingly adept at folding their eponymous red
webbed feet around the branches. The frigatebirds had just started courtship;
unfortunately the courting males were a bit too far away (Also here we had to
adhere strictly to the paths) to get good photographs of their amazingly large
red throat pouches. The frigatebirds usually sit on top of the trees, but the
boobies were more often than not quite inconspicuous on their branches, now
that the trees are in full leaf.
The third nesting seabird here, the large black-and-white endemic Nazca Boobie,
nests on the ground and seems to prefer more open places. Towards the edge of
the cliff the broken flat lava ground is alive with many thousands of milling
Wedge-rumped Petrels, a veritable bee-swarm, or a large puffin colony from a
distance; these small birds that are quite helpless on land, are here able to
live diurnally, becuase there are few predators. No large rapacious gulls or
skuas and on this outlying island no Galapagos Hawks either. The few
Short-eared Owls, which we searched for in vain, do prey heavily on the storm
petrels, but they are unable to make much of a dent in this enormous colony.
Small birds we saw very few, a pity as this is one of the islands of the famous
vampyre finch, the Sharp-beaked Finch, which draws and drinks blood from
nesting seabirds. But the prevailing drought of the last two years had
decimated the finches here, apparently, while the recent rains had spread the
remainder wide. We saw only 2-3 finches altogether. The only other small birds
were a few Galapagos Doves, the odd mockingbird and a Yellow Warbler or two.
Wim
Vader, Tromsø Museum
9037
Tromsø, Norway
Wim
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