“I have stated, that in the thirteen species of ground-finches, a nearly perfect gradation may be traced, from a beak extraordinarily thick, to one so fine, that it may be compared to that of a warbler.”
― Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle
At the beginning of the trip, Bekah and I were talking about how to manage our blogs while we were here. At first I thought I would post a photo of the day and just explain it a bit, but at the end of each day there are about 20 “photos of the day” and it is impossible to choose, It also seems daunting to write about any of the wildlife or experiences in much detail, as we are seeing and doing so much, and downtime is infrequent. That said, here is a brief update of what were highlights for me today.
The first, was visiting Urbina Bay on Isabela island and observing and coming into close contact with several Galapagos tortoises, who were walking the same paths as we were this morning. At the same time we were watching the poison apple trees and flowers around us, which were filled with locusts, paper wasps, queen butterflies, sulfur butterflies, Galápagos mockingbirds, yellow warblers (who all flew away too quickly for me to get a photo!), and of course, darwin’s finches. If you haven't read it, I recommend checking out Jonathan Weiner's, The Beak of the Finch. The walk ended with a swim at the beach and several of us opted to swim all the way back to the ship.
After lunch, we headed out snorkeling. Deep sea snorkeling in the Galápagos is phenomenal and every day has topped the day before. Today we again got to spend time swimming and floating next to sea turtles who are the mellowest, peaceful creatures I’ve ever seen. We also got to witness a flightless cormorant diving and swimming, searching for food. Flightless cormorants are endemic to the Galápagos. They have wings, but don’t fly. They are agile swimmer and search for food underwater. We were withing a couple of feet of one, and even though he was surrounded by snorkelers, he went about his day as if we weren’t nearby. Today was my first day trying out the GoPro camera underwater and was pleasantly surprised with how my photos turned out.
Here are a few of my favorite photos from the day!
― Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle
At the beginning of the trip, Bekah and I were talking about how to manage our blogs while we were here. At first I thought I would post a photo of the day and just explain it a bit, but at the end of each day there are about 20 “photos of the day” and it is impossible to choose, It also seems daunting to write about any of the wildlife or experiences in much detail, as we are seeing and doing so much, and downtime is infrequent. That said, here is a brief update of what were highlights for me today.
The first, was visiting Urbina Bay on Isabela island and observing and coming into close contact with several Galapagos tortoises, who were walking the same paths as we were this morning. At the same time we were watching the poison apple trees and flowers around us, which were filled with locusts, paper wasps, queen butterflies, sulfur butterflies, Galápagos mockingbirds, yellow warblers (who all flew away too quickly for me to get a photo!), and of course, darwin’s finches. If you haven't read it, I recommend checking out Jonathan Weiner's, The Beak of the Finch. The walk ended with a swim at the beach and several of us opted to swim all the way back to the ship.
After lunch, we headed out snorkeling. Deep sea snorkeling in the Galápagos is phenomenal and every day has topped the day before. Today we again got to spend time swimming and floating next to sea turtles who are the mellowest, peaceful creatures I’ve ever seen. We also got to witness a flightless cormorant diving and swimming, searching for food. Flightless cormorants are endemic to the Galápagos. They have wings, but don’t fly. They are agile swimmer and search for food underwater. We were withing a couple of feet of one, and even though he was surrounded by snorkelers, he went about his day as if we weren’t nearby. Today was my first day trying out the GoPro camera underwater and was pleasantly surprised with how my photos turned out.
Here are a few of my favorite photos from the day!