If you love birds, then make sure to include Genovesa in your Galapagos island cruise.

Why would you put yourself through a night sailing in roughs and getting sea sick like me?

Because from all the islands in your Galapagos cruise, Genovesa is the ideal place to watching countless beautiful birds you wont see anywhere else.

We were lucky our guide spotted a short eared Galapagos owl, which as you can see on the picture blends in perfectly with the Galapagos environment.

Walking from Prince Philip’s Steps towards the black cliffs, it’s cute to see pairs of birds nesting, utterly protected inside the cliffs.

This red-footed booby is the smallest booby in Galapagos and the only one that nests in trees.

Other birds you will surely see without needing binoculars are pigeons, herons, sea-gulls and the above red footed boobies, while frigatebirds fly endlessly searching for food.

If you do love birds and you don’t mind to get seasick (or make sure to bring anti-seasick pills, which I unfortunately forgot…), then make sure to include Genovesa in your Galapagos islands cruise.

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But before you dig deep into the uniqueness of diversification, the main thing is to enjoy these Galapagos Island animals in their daily life and surroundings.

Just enjoy what you see because you are on vacation after all!

The smurf amongst the Galapagos Island animals

The most curious bird of all, I always call it the "smurf bird" is the one below: as if he bought himself some plastic swimwear and his favorite colour is blue…

Galapagos Island animals : the blue footed booby

This bird dives in the sea in order to catch fish, so that’s already an amazing thing to witness every day. It becomes fun though when you experience their mating dance… then you understand why the colour of their feet is so blue.

We will show you this in our next post and also explain why the bird is called booby in the first place. It’s derived from a Spanish word because don’t forget: Galapagos Island animals are close to the south American continent.

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Galapagos Islands tours

If you opt for visiting the different Galapagos Islands on a tour, then make sure to use your eyes like Darwin did: have a look how these turtles look different on each Galapagos island, being adapted to the specific vegetation and life conditions of each specific Galapagos Island.

Read more at: Galapagos Turtles

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Frigate Birds in Galapagos and beyond are the only sea birds that are not waterproofed!

Frigate birds produce hardly any oil and therefore don’t want to land in the ocean. They do attack and rob other seabirds of their fish.

Since they are never in the sea, you will notice them up in the air: they are those large black birds looking like big black kites. And they perform a fast and amazing display when they dive after fish dropped by other seabirds.

Their body is as big as a chicken and the tallest Galapagos frigate bird can have a wingspan reaching more than 7 feet (or 2m).

Although frigate birds seems to have black feathers when you see them flying in the Galapagos sky, their feathers produce different colours when they refract the sunlight:
 

• Magnificent Galapagos Frigate Birds will refract purple colours
   
• Great Galapagos Frigate Birds will refract green colours.

Male frigate birds have a typical red patch of skin at their throat. During courtship, males will force air in this red gular pouch as if they were carrying a big red balloon.

We didn’t see any frigate birds’ courtship when we visited Galapagos, as the birds where hatching when we set foot on the North Seymour Islands.

On the picture you see a female Frigate Bird of Galapagos as females are marked with white colours below.

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What I will never forget and what sets the stage for your whole Galapagos vacation was the sea lion coming to greet us!

Sea lion’s welcome on Galapagos!

2 things are special on Galapagos:

1. you are only allowed with very tiny groups on each and every island at one time, so it’s all but mass-tourism
2. the animals just come to you in stead of you needing to wait hours in order to see a glimpse in the distance!

It’s just unforgettable!!!

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But when you use these finches as an educational means, then don’t stress on the names of the beaks… Always make sure your audience starts loving what you are doing, once they love nature, they will ask you more. And once you got them started asking, you will be able to teach them facts. The main thing is you start with teaching love

Galapagos Island Finches : what about their beaks?

When it comes to the finch, there is nothing spectacular about its beak: it needs to survive like you and me. And that’s what biology education should be about: how do creatures live next to each other in order to survive?

As you can see: my point of view is more ecological than just name this plant and never ask yourself why there is a plant in the first place.

Also: people will remember things that interests them. So try to get people interested in nature first and then the name giving aspects will come later.

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Although the boat is small, it beats the massive luxury cruises that brings you to yet another Galapagos tourist attraction.

How to eat a cactus

Every day we saw different Islands: one looks like the moon, the next looks like a volcano, the next is filled with flamingo’s, the next has real trees and the next only has one cactus next to the other…

Galapagos wildlife: iguana eating a cactus

And of course this variety leads to an equal immense variety of Galapagos wildlife animals: try to avoid the spikes when eating a cactus… It’s just amazing and as always: you are sitting next to the animal

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Snorkel with Galapagos Penguins

If you love both penguins and snorkeling, then Galapagos is the ideal place to come up and close with the Galapagos penguins. Don’t be surprised if the Galapagos penguin starts "chasing" you when snorkeling in stead you chasing him!

What makes a Galapagos Penguin standing out?

As with all penguins, they don’t fly in the air, but they use the flying movement under water, to swim around in the warm waters of Galapagos looking for fish.

But they stand out by standing, or more precisely by walking. On land, Galapagos penguins walk more upright than other birds. This is  because the legs of the Galapagos Penguin are placed more backwards. Penguins also move by hopping around with both feet, next time you visit Galapagos, have a look at the Galapagos penguins hopping outside the waves onto a rock. Quite amazing skills!

What is most unusual but understandable is the breeding of the Galapagos penguin. Unlike the penguins in colder areas that need to follow the seasons, Galapagos penguins can breed to up to 3 times a year. 2 eggs are laid and both parent Galapagos penguins share in the incubation. Yet only one of the young penguins will usually make it into an adult Galapagos penguin.

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Back in the days of Darwin (Charles Darwin and Galapagos finches), the easiest source of food were the famous giant Galapagos turtles. They are so slow that they are easy to capture, and if you turn them on their back, they are said to be able to live for another year…

So it was only a matter of time that Galapagos turtles became endangered. Some have been captured to save the species: zoos that have Galapagos turtles have been breeding them successfully and introduced them back to the Galapagos Islands.

Yet we all know that the gene-pool is limited when your ancestors have been breeding only in zoos. Meaning: only a few parents are at the origin of most modern day Galapagos turtles.

You can say: take a turtle from one island and put them on the other islands…

I agree with that idea, but then some biologists still think that “one shouldn’t interfere”… That I find a discussable stand: first people destroy almost all and then they say: we shouldn’t interfere…

Then the specific Galapagos dilemma: one turtle form 1 island is a bit different than one from another island, and they don’t seem to have a appetite to mix-breed… That’s exactly the reason why you get specific sub species in the first place…: they “don’t breed with just any turtle!”.

Endangered Galapagos Turtles

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If you love bird-watching, but you can’t afford booking a Galapagos Tour, then you can still enjoy pictures of this Galapagos frigate bird and others at picture sites like Acobox.