Santa Cruz Island
I can’t stop saying that this has been a wonderful week, where every possible species has been found. Today we were hoping for giant tortoises and some Darwin’s finches, and luckily we saw the elusive woodpecker finch. But we saw even more than what we expected.
After meeting famous tortoise Lonesome George at the Charles Darwin Research Station, and seeing the baby tortoises that some day will be repatriated to their home islands, we rode up to a different kind of landscape, we headed to the evergreen highlands of Santa Cruz. What did we encounter there? Pretty much everything we wanted, and even more. At the restroom of Anita’s place, where we had lunch, there was a barn owl. Very rarely on our trips do we manage to see this bird. This is a nocturnal hunter, and we can’t stay on the islands after six in the afternoon. But today it was there for us, so a long line of people formed outside the men’s restroom to set eyes on the bird.
After lunch, in the Scalesia (or “giant broccoli”) forest we spotted various vermillion flycatchers. And we got to see the elusive woodpecker finch, not just standing on a branch, but actually displaying the behavior for which they are famous. It had a tool in its little beak; it was a small twig with which the finch tried to get some larvae from the bark of a tree. I can’t believe that we have seen so much, and the week isn’t over at all. It must be because of the meteorite shower about to come, or as a result of some kind of strange phenomena we don’t yet know about, but it has been an unbelievable week.
I can’t stop saying that this has been a wonderful week, where every possible species has been found. Today we were hoping for giant tortoises and some Darwin’s finches, and luckily we saw the elusive woodpecker finch. But we saw even more than what we expected.
After meeting famous tortoise Lonesome George at the Charles Darwin Research Station, and seeing the baby tortoises that some day will be repatriated to their home islands, we rode up to a different kind of landscape, we headed to the evergreen highlands of Santa Cruz. What did we encounter there? Pretty much everything we wanted, and even more. At the restroom of Anita’s place, where we had lunch, there was a barn owl. Very rarely on our trips do we manage to see this bird. This is a nocturnal hunter, and we can’t stay on the islands after six in the afternoon. But today it was there for us, so a long line of people formed outside the men’s restroom to set eyes on the bird.
After lunch, in the Scalesia (or “giant broccoli”) forest we spotted various vermillion flycatchers. And we got to see the elusive woodpecker finch, not just standing on a branch, but actually displaying the behavior for which they are famous. It had a tool in its little beak; it was a small twig with which the finch tried to get some larvae from the bark of a tree. I can’t believe that we have seen so much, and the week isn’t over at all. It must be because of the meteorite shower about to come, or as a result of some kind of strange phenomena we don’t yet know about, but it has been an unbelievable week.
