Pelican with Brown Noddy

I've just returned from a two-week photography tour to the Galapagos Islands. From our small boat (perhaps impertinently named The Beagle, after Darwin's ship), we made 18 landings on 11 different islands, as well as taking eight dingy rides for water-level photography. It was altogether a spectacular experience.

I previously backblipped three images during a brief stop in Puerto Ayora, the largest town. But now I am backblipping a dozen more--with commentary , for the period from 5 July to 20 July. You can start with a preliminary hummingbird outing on 5 July.

The leader of the tour was Arthur Morris, a top bird and nature photographer in North America; I had previously gone twice to the Galapagos also with him, a week each time in July 2006 and 2008. For a group of images from those trips, see this page on my website. Arthur Morris's blog is here.

This blip is from the last morning of our panga tour at Black Turtle Cove on the northern edge of Santa Cruz Island ; it's near the airport on Baltra Island, from which we took our plane a few hours later.

Twelve of us had left our small boat in our panga (dingy or Zodiac) a few minutes before 6 am (sunrise year-round at the equator) to photograph what we would find. Almost immediately we encountered a flurry of Pelicans with Brown Noddies flocking around them. This is a common sight: The noddies (Anous stolidus) hone in on any brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) that may have caught a fish in its dive and harrass it until the pelican has full control--as here.

The Galapagos Islands are entirely of relatively recent volcanic origin, created by a hot spot that flows upward sporadically through the tectonic plate (the "Nazca" plate) which carries the islands eastward toward the Latin American mainland, resulting in "shield volcanoes" similar to those which formed the Hawaian Islands. Volcanic activity occurs every few year on the western islands of Isabela and Fernandina.