Today's trails are on another Island that we were particularly interested in going to and we weren't disappointed with what we saw. The Island itself is quite spectacular, being a collapsed/submerged volcano which you can see from the map because it is almost impossible to show in a picture how the cliff wraps around the ship anchored in the middle.
The landing was at Prince Philips Steps which is really a rock fall conveniently making steps up to the cliff top. The trail is one-way only, and our group is first.
After landing there are the usual sea-lions and iguanas but then the trail proper starts and first on the list are frigate birds. There are several of them nesting and some have young birds, too.
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Male Frigate Bird
From here we move on into areas with masked boobies and red-footed boobies. The red footed boobies actually come in two flavours - the brown version and a black/white version, though both have blue beaks. In this location we only saw the brown one - though someone on another group claim to have spotted one of the other breed.
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They do not perform a "Booby Dance" because they are quite different from the Blue Foots in that the Red Foots nest in trees and bushes whereas the Blue Footed Boobies tend to do things on the ground.
Val with a Red-Footed Booby
As we rounded the corner we saw the sea and thousands of storm petrels flying around. The trail plan indicates "owl" - lo and behold Val spotted it way out over the lava field. What joy from the group - we had hoped to spot a short eared owl. After the enthusiasm of spotting the owl in the distance, we turned a corner and encountered one very much at close quarters - a mere four feet away, unperturbed at our presence.
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The following photo shows just how close the owl was.
Along the coastal route other birds were spotted, many not the first time e.g. Lava Heron and Yellow-crowned night heron. At the end of the trail we were treated to more frigatebirds nesting.
Frigatebird descending on nest
Our steps were retraced (the owl still there), back to the panga to board for a short panga tour.
This was a bit of a failed attempt at wildlife/sealife spotting - turtle, manta ray, another yellow-crowned night heron and a shark or two.
Turtle surfaced briefly
Over all to soon and back to the Galapagos Explorer II.
This afternoon's outing isn't 'till quite late on so before lunch we signed up for a tour of the bridge, which was very interesting. We also enquired about tonight's sailing time and when we would be passing the equator so that we could make sure we were on deck to see if there really is a big line round the earth (like at Quito).
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