Galapagos 2013

Another year, another visit to the Galapagos Islands, one place for which the right words are hard to find. Superlatives don't really work, when it comes to describing the Galapagos, and I have to revert to their original name of Las Islas Encantadas... their enchantment has totally worked its spell on me. I'm just back from my sixth visit to the islands, and if anything I'm more enchanted now that ever before!

This year's trip came after a good wet season, with the islands looking very green: butterflies were in amazing abundance this year, much more so than I've ever seen before, and families of finches were everywhere, both the result of a good flush of growth during the season before.

This year we headed out to the western islands of Isabela and Fernandina, the first time I've been here since my very first visit to the islands in 2007 (it feels a very long time ago now!). The lovely little dirt-track town of Puerto Villamil on Isabela was a revelation (I will make it a priority to come back here some time: the perfect place to escape from the world!) and it was good to see Flightless Cormorants again, a surprisingly handsome bird.

Isabela was where we got good views of Galapagos Martin, a bird I hadn't even seen before last year. The total population is estimated to be under 500 birds, although this is very much a finger in the air guesstimate and my guess would be that this is on the generous side. With no surveys of the islands and very little attention from the conservation community, this is perhaps the least known of Galapagos's endemic birds: it is currently categorised by BirdLife as Endangered. We saw three or four at Punta Moreno and another five or six at a nesting cliff at Tagus Cove.

West of Isabela and in the Bolivar Channel, between Isabela and Fernandina, we had close encounters with two groups of dolphins: a pod of about 30 Bottle-nosed Dolphins came in to ride the bow on our way to Tagus Cove, with plenty of tail lobbing and playful breaching; heading north from Punta Espinosa, a patch of 'busy' water in the distance revealed itself as a pod of more than 100 amazingly acrobatic Short-beaked Common Dolphins (above) who we travelled with for a while, accompanied by a chorus of whoops and wows from us on the boat; and shortly after the dolphins, a Bryde's Whale appeared in front of the boat, spouting a couple of times before sinking down into the deep.

Also in this area, we had close up encounters with several Galapagos Petrels. This Critically Endangered endemic breeds up in the highlands of the larger islands and is suffering from the invasion of its breeding sites by non-native plants (notably Quinine and Hill Raspberry) and predation by introduced mammals (rats and cats in particular). On Santa Cruz we visited the breeding habitat, the Miconia 'forest' around Media Luna, where we found the skeleton of an adult.

Aeshna galapagoensis, the Galapagos Hawker was present in good numbers up at Media Luna, with many pairs in wheel.

My first Paint-billed Crake (and chick, bottom right). This family (with four chicks) ran across the track in front of us on Santa Cruz soon after a similar family of Galapagos Rails, and we saw at least another four of five of the latter during our couple of days on the island.  It seems the breeding season has been a good one for these two as well. There are now just three Galapagos breeding species left for me to see: Sooty Tern, out on Darwin and Wolf; Mangrove Finch, which just hangs on at two sites on Isabela, both now out of bounds to visitors; and Sharp-beaked Ground Finch, which I inexplicably missed on my visit to Genovesa a couple of years ago. I'm hoping to be back on Genovesa next year...

A feature of the islands this year was the super abundance, in some locations, of butterflies. Galapagos Sulphur and Galapagos Blue were both as common and widespread as usual and there were also a handful of Monarch on the wing on the larger islands. At Tagus Cove on Isabela, swarms of Galapagos Long-tailed Skipper were feeding on Waltheria flowers, with literally hundreds of individuals seen during the short walk up to the viewpoint. And even more impressive were the butterflies on Santiago: where in the past I have seen one or two Galapagos Silver Fritillaries (above), this year there were hundreds of individuals, together with a mass emergence of the Queen (top), again all nectaring on Waltheria. 

The other group that have obviously done well from the wet season were the finches. The arid zone areas were full of family groups of Small and Medium Ground Finch and Cactus Finch, with Small Tree Finch common in the higher areas. As usual, Large Ground Finch was easiest to find around the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz, with Woodpecker Finches and Highland Warbler Finches up in the highlands of Santa Cruz and Isabela. Not always an easy bird to find, we came across pairs of Vegetarian Finches at the CDRS and up in the highlands of Santa Cruz, while a single male Large Tree Finch, always a tricky bird to get a good look at, was found at Los Gemelos. The most unlikely of the finch sightings was a confiding juvenile Woodpecker Finch, normally a bird of the highlands, down in the arid zone at the CDRS. Even odder was it's behavious, begging for food from a juvenile Medium Ground Finch, who even-more-bizarrely seemed to be responding!

male Vegetarian Finch on the edge of the El Chatto tortoise reserve

juvenile Woodpecker Finch at the Charles Darwin Research Station. Rather sadly, this individual was showing the early signs of avian pox, a disease which first arrived in the islands in the late 1800s. The wart-like lesions on the feet also spread into the upper respiratory tract, with a high mortality rate...

A full trip report is available to download from the Wildlife Travel website, with a gallery of photos from this year's visit on flickr.

 

We will be returning to Galapagos in April 2014, with a visit to the world's largest colony of Red-footed Boobies on Genovesa (and another chance at Sharp-beaked Ground Finch!). Let us know if you'd like to join us!