GALAPAGOS: WHERE ENDEMIC IS PANDEMIC

After a week of birding the Ecuadoran mainland, I got a chance to go on an extension trip to the Galapagos.  Thanks to PIB and their Ecuadoran partner, Neblina Forest Tours. Of Galapagos, heads every list of 10 places you must visit during your lifetime.   Like Venice, like the Grand Canyon, there is no comparison with other places.

This is a Nazca Booby, perched high on the sheer rock face of Lion’s Head (or Kicker) Rock off the west coast of San Cristobal Island.  San Cristobal is the easternmost and thus oldest island still above the sea in the Galapagos. Archipelago.  Like Hawaii, the Galapagos are a chain of islands formed by a fixed hot spot in the Earth’s crust. The newest islands are still being formed by volcanoes on the western end of the chain, the oldest islands have been moved  to the east by the continually shifting tectonic plates.  Because the Galapagos have never been closer than 700 miles to any continent, the selection process of species that reached the islands and survived and reproduced has created a unique flora and fauna.

Here’s a group of Galapagos Shearwaters just off the bow of our yacht.  Endemic, of course.

And here are two Galapagos Penguins fishing near some of the human snorklers from our boat.  Endemic, of course. And the only penguin whose range extends just slightly north of the Equator.

Click here for the list of Ecuador and Galapagos trips in 2011.

Tags: endemic, Galapagos, Nazca Booby, Neblina Forest Tours, penguin, San Cristobal, shearwaters, volcano