Floreana Island has a long and interesting human history in the Galapagos Islands. If you've read the first-hand account, "Floreana: A Woman's Pilgrimage to the Galapagos," then you know what I mean. Prior to European settlement, pirates stopped at the island for the reliable source of fresh water and to hunt tortoises. The pirate caves still exist today. Unfortunately, the Floreana Island Tortoise is now extinct, and the Floreana Mockingbird has been extirpated from the main island. Thankfully the mockingbird still exists in tiny numbers on a couple of nearby small islands. And there is an attempt being made to resurrect the extinct tortoise. During the pirate days, some Floreana tortoises taken from the island were abandoned near the Wolf Volcano on Isabella Island. While no pure Floreana Tortoises exist, a number of tortoises at Wolf have been found that have significant genetic ancestry. A special breeding program has been undertaken to attempt bring tortoises back to Floreana.
Our goal for the morning was to visit the highlands of the shield volcano to see the remnants of early habitation, pick up some new bird species (Medium Tree-Finch is endemic to the island), and visit the tortoise compound where the former personal pets of the locals are now kept. While seeing these captive tortoises at very close range was very cool, we would have to wait until later in the trip to see some wild ones.
If the video window above isn't working, click HERE to open the video in YouTube
The highlands of Asilo de la Paz
One of the historic caves
Someone had a lot of time on their hands
Common Cactus-Finch
Medium Ground-Finch
Medium Tree-Finch
Paint-billed Crake
Medium Tree-Finch
Tortoise
Tortoise
Returning to the lowlands we visited the small town. One of the hotels is still run by the descendants of the original Wittmer family and we stopped in. The Blue-footed Boobies were hunting fish right off shore and gave us a great show with their arrow-like diving into the shallows.
Visiting the Wittmer hotel
Blue-footed Booby dive
After lunch we cruised the big boat around to the south side of the island at Punta Cormorant for a walk past a lagoon. From here, in the near distance, we could see the two small islets where we would get our chance for the endangered Floreana Mockingbird.
The lagoon didn't have the expected Flamingos, but there was other stuff
Isla Champion is on the right. We go there next.
Lava (Striated) Heron
Medium Ground-Finch
And then it was time to visit Isla Champion and look for mockingbirds. The Floreana Mockingbird is thought to be Darwin's inspiration for the Origin of Species when he noticed how much different it was to the other mockingbirds species he had seen on other islands. At about 250 individuals on these two islets, it is endangered - but the population is stable.
We couldn't land on Champion, so the captain showed is skills and put the big boat within about 50 yards of the island. Fighting the intense current, he kept us close enough to search the cacti for birds. Everyone stood on the bow and scanned anxiously. And then we saw one, and then two birds. Awesome.
As we moved away from the island, we passed near a feeding frenzy. There were frigatebirds, shearwaters, noddies, and boobies going hard after a school of baitfish. Even the tuna were getting in the action. Watch this video to see the action, occasionally a tuna crashes the surface going after the small fish.
Feeding frenzy video
If the video window above isn't working, click HERE to open the video in YouTube
And, as reminder to email subscribers, if you can't see the videos in the email, click the "View this email in your browser" link at the top.
!!! Loved this!!!
ReplyDeleteRosie