Urvina Bay on Isabela Island
One more experience on Isabela, the largest island, with a wet landing at Urvina Bay. We were met by an immature Galapagos Hawk, who seemed unfazed by our approaching within a few feet of him as he sat on the sign indicating the direction of the trail. In decades of birdwatching I had never seen birds that would allow us so easily to get so close as we had to Magnificent Frigatebirds, Blue Footed and Nazca Boobies, and this hawk.
 |
| Galapagos Hawk (immature) |
 |
| Galapagos Hawk greets us at Urvina Bay |
Walking on a trail of volcanic ash, pumice, and lava, we saw a Giant Tortoise moving slowly through the brush. Before long we saw another Galapagos Land Iguana next the hole it had excavated, and later another who stayed right on the trail as we carefully stepped around him.
 |
| Giant Tortoise |
 |
| Galapagos Land Iguana |
Greg told us these animals have a preference for yellow, as they feed on the yellow flowers of more than one species of plant. He says he has even seen Land Iguanas follow a person down the trail who was wearing yellow socks or had yellow shoelaces!
 |
| One of the flowers that attracts the Land Iguana |
Walking through an area that had experienced a dramatic uplift from being under the sea in the late 1990s, Greg had vivid stories of the impact of this sudden uplift on the wildlife. Next to the trail we walked by large pieces of coral that not many years before had been living and underwater.
 |
| Coral from uplift in late 1990s |
 |
| Dead coral exposed on land from dramatic uplift of sea floor |
As we examined some of this coral, Greg identified a Medium Ground Finch on a nearby bush. We admit we never did completely grasp the identification of the many different finches in Galapagos. Upon a little closer study, however, the beaks are the main key to identification, and each species really is quite distinctive. Our pocket guide identified thirteen different species.
 |
| Medium Ground Finch |
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning
The Beak of the Finch (1994), Jonathan Weiner wrote a compelling account of the life work of Peter and Rosemary Grant, who documented their observations of evolution actually taking place among the finches of Daphne Major, one of the Galapagos Islands. A week after we completed our trip we learned they had just arrived again on Daphne Major to pursue their continuing research on the finches there.
As we came back out towards the bay to meet the panga, there was a beautiful lagoon surrounded by lava rocks, where we saw Brown Pelicans and Great Blue Herons.
 |
| Lagoon with Brown Pelicans (photo by Chris Pulling) |
 |
| Great Blue Heron |
After this walk at Urvina Bay, we snorkeled along the lovely rocky coast. As Blue Footed Boobies and Flightless Cormorants watched from perches on the rocks, we swam with several Sea Turtles and saw more and more colorful fish, as we swam along a steep drop-off not far from shore and tried to avoid being washed up on the rocks by the gentle surf.
Punta Espinoza on Fernandina Island
The afternoon of this day, after traveling to Fernandina, we made a dry landing from the panga onto black pahoehoe lava at Punta Espinoza, one of the most photogenic places we visited. On the panga ride to our landing, Brown Pelicans filled the sky and water in a feeding frenzy - flying above, diving into the water for fish, swimming as they scooped up more fish, taking off to watch for fish from above and dive again. When we landed, several of these birds with their great feeding pouches posed for photographs.
 |
| Brown Pelican |
As Greg promised, we saw "hordes of Sea Iguanas" nearly everywhere we walked over pahoehoe lava and sand. The iguanas are coming into the mating season in December, so there was some male display - mostly we observed them opening the mouth, bobbing the head, swelling up the body a bit, apparently in order to look more fearsome. While we saw them swimming, we saw many more of them on land. They lay on each other for warmth, as well as seeming to try to position for superiority. They also have the ability to spit quite a distance. We thought the Marine Iguanas in Galapagos were the most prehistoric-looking of the animals we saw. They are all the same species, but vary in color - see the previous images of the iguanas with deep red and green patches on Espanola.
 |
| Marine Iguana swimming above sea lettuce - a main food source |
 |
| Marine Iguanas at Punta Espinoza |
Occasionally a lava lizard will run up on the back of an iguana and perch there.
 |
| Galapagos Lava Lizard (male) on Marine Iguana |
The beach where the iguanas lay their eggs was off-limits for walking so as not to step on their eggs, but it took care, even walking on the established marked trail, not to step on these prehistoric-looking animals. The trail marker is the black and white stick behind the hiker on the trail; the protected nesting area is the sandy/gravel beach to the left of the marker.
 |
| Trail along edge of Sea Iguana nesting area |
Sea lions lounged on the rocks and beach, paying little attention to tourists.
We observed the Flightless Cormorant up close.
 |
| Flightless Cormorant |
The American Oystercatcher is a striking bird.
 |
| American Oystercatcher |
The bright orange Sally Lightfoot Crabs, which are six inches across and abundant on all the rocky coasts, always caught our eye.
 |
| Sally Lightfoot Crab |
