Galapagos Day 14

The final day of the Galapagos Cruise brings us to what has turned out to be a highlight of the trip, the island of Genovesa. Uninhabited, the island is in many ways “bird island”.  

We had two landings, one at 7:30am and one at 3pm, in different parts of the island. In between we had two snorkelling trips, swimming with hammerhead and white tip sharks and the ever present multicoloured little fish.

Sadly, bar our final evening meal and an overnight trip back to Baltra Island, to catch our plane back to Quito tomorrow morning, the voyage is over.  But what a spectacular voyage it has been.  Truly an experience of a lifetime.

To round it off, here are a few of the shots taken today.  I’ve started with the Short Eared Owl, it was darker than our northern european variety, and as there are no voles here it survives on other prey.  I’ve never been closer to an owl than on this occasion.  I spied it as I passed a bush and was able to move slowly enough to take this shot without scaring it.  Its not cropped - I was only about 4m away.

In the extras you will find a yellow crowned night heron fishing, (on any other day I would have led with that!).  The next extra is a red footed booby - with its pink feet and blue beak it is a very attractive looking bird.  Finally, I’ve given you another of Darwin’s finches - the vampire finch levitating in mid jump.  This little fellow will drink the blood of larger birds if it can’t find other water or food.