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| Our first afternoon was spent
on North Seymour Island. There we got our first look at the strange landscapes
that make up the Galapagos. It is hard to believe that we are on the Equator,
and even harder to believe that this land is teeming with wildlife. |
But we didn't have to look long
or hard to see the inhabitants of the islands. The frigate birds were in
full display. Pat was happy about that.
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| Along with the frigate birds
there were blue-footed boobies. Unlike the other times we had seen these
birds (mostly in flight), this time we could actually see the bright blue
feet. |
Most of the chicks had hatched,
but there were still a few nest sites left around the island.
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| We also got our first look at
the Galapagos land iguana--the North Seymour variety, as they differ from
island to island, as do most of the terrestrial animals. |
The swallowtail gull was a dramatic
sight, dressed in gray, black, and red. This is the only night-fishing gull
in the world, and we saw them fairly frequently hanging out on the rocks
during the day. |
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| We had been told that we would
get close to the animals and they would not be afraid of us, but I don't
think any of us realized quite what that meant until we actually encountered
sea lions in our path. |
As the sun set over Daphne
Major (famous as the research site in The Beak of the Finch), we knew that we had made a good decision to come and that
we would spend the next week being amazed by what we saw.
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