galapagos

Yes. one of these rocks actually is a sleeping sealion. Only in Galapagos ...

Notice the stick in its bill and notice the dark color of the bill making this a male.

I believe this to be a woodpecker finch. I am also uploading its presumed mate.

Another image found among those incompletely processed back then.

A second photo of this species. It might be the same bird (45 seconds between the photos I upload) or it may be different - the light is very different. This photo shows clearly the crossed tips of the bill, which is said to be characteristic of this species.

I was going through some older photos when seeing some I had not decided back then which species they contained. Well, some of them were of this species, and I was not sure I had any photos of it.

I like this image because it shows the unusual look of the bill.

Here's one of the curious mockingbirds on Gardner Bay beach, checking out someone's flipflop sandals!

This is the long beach at Gardner Bay. This is where the Espanola Mockingbirds come to greet you - they examine your feet, cameras and water bottles!! In drought times they know they can get a drink from the human visitors!

On the first day of excursions in the Galapagos Islands, we went ashore in Garner Bay. This is the view of an offshore island surrounded by a turquoise sea! The mockingbirds here will come to greet you, hoping for a drink of your water, during drought times!

In the afternoon, we were taken on a trip in the zodiacs, to see this volcanic island which looks like a Chinese hat! It is located near the much larger Santiago Island. Saw a few Galapagos Penguins along the shorelines of other islands.

This is the third species of Booby you can find on the Galapagos Islands. This pair were on the side of the path, but did not move as our party walked by!!

This is the male of this species. They have this very large bill for cracking open the biggest, hardest seeds found on Genovesa Island.

On our second day of the trip, we went to Espanola, an uninhabited island on the southeast side of the Galapagos archipelago. The endemic mockingbirds are very bold and will come to investigate your shoes, cameras, etc. In drought times they will come over, hoping to get a drink from your water...

A common booby throughout the Galapagos Islands. It's so easy to get great photos, because the birds are not afraid of humans, having been on the islands for thousands of years before anyone found them. The archipelago is 600 miles west of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean, right on the Equator.

Now you see me on the way up the steps. Not too difficult as a good set of wooden hand rails had been installed. Britain's Prince Philip did visit the island twice some years ago. The cliff is 82 feet high. This was the last day of our wonderful trip around the Galapagos Islands! Still have a...

We saw these Yellow Warblers everywhere. They are native to the Galapagos Islands and do not miigrate.

This young frigatebird was sitting there patiently waiting for its parents to come back and feed it! The birds in the Galapagos show no fear of humans, so it's easy to get good photos without having to have a really long lens!

This was the last day of our Nat/Geo trip around the Galapagos Islands. We went to Genovesa Island on the northern edge of the archipelago. This island is very rugged, being an extinct volcano and on the south side is a large collapsed volcanic crater, forming a bay where we were able to...

There are 4 species of mockingbirds in the Galapagos Islands. Three of them are endemic to their own islands, but this one is quite widespread over the other islands.

We enjoyed seeing the giant tortoises and were pleased to find lots of birds around the Sanctuary. Sometimes it's difficult to identify the numerous types of finch, but I decided this was a Small Ground Finch, even though it was not on the ground!!

Day 3 of our Galapagos trip. A very early start at 6:45 AM. We went ashore in the zodiacs, then took a walk past this lake where we saw about 16 flamingos, another lifer for my list! There were also a couple of Red-necked Phalaropes, but they were too far away to get a good photograph. Later, on...

Day 5 of our Galapagos trip. We were taken ashore in zodiacs for another wet landing, as there was not a jetty at this remote shore on the island of Santa Cruz. We saw 14 species of birds on our walk, one of which - a Brown Noddy Tern, was a lifer!