Genovesa Island
A fabulous finish to an awesome week’s trip in the Enchanted Islands! Genovesa is known for its hundreds of thousands of nesting seabirds and we admired and photographed them to our heart’s content today. Fluffy frigate and red-footed booby chicks were perched on flimsy twig platforms. A hungry frigate chick probed deep into its mother’s throat for breakfast (see photo). Tiny down balls that looked almost exactly like guano covered rocks, moved, and became newly hatched swallow-tailed gulls.
In the afternoon one male frigate surprised us. With his red balloon gular pouch still inflated, he is extremely late in his attempt to find a mate and will surely go without, for this season. The dazzling white and black Nazca boobies were settling territorial disputes, and hundreds of wedge-rumped storm petrels fluttered back and forth above their lava tunnel nests.
We saw so much more than just seabirds today! On the afternoon walk we found five short eared owls, and seven mobula rays, plus a huge Pacific manta. At our farewell cocktail in the evening, many of our guests fondly remembered a different and personal highlight. No doubt we have all been changed by this week’s expedition.
A fabulous finish to an awesome week’s trip in the Enchanted Islands! Genovesa is known for its hundreds of thousands of nesting seabirds and we admired and photographed them to our heart’s content today. Fluffy frigate and red-footed booby chicks were perched on flimsy twig platforms. A hungry frigate chick probed deep into its mother’s throat for breakfast (see photo). Tiny down balls that looked almost exactly like guano covered rocks, moved, and became newly hatched swallow-tailed gulls.
In the afternoon one male frigate surprised us. With his red balloon gular pouch still inflated, he is extremely late in his attempt to find a mate and will surely go without, for this season. The dazzling white and black Nazca boobies were settling territorial disputes, and hundreds of wedge-rumped storm petrels fluttered back and forth above their lava tunnel nests.
We saw so much more than just seabirds today! On the afternoon walk we found five short eared owls, and seven mobula rays, plus a huge Pacific manta. At our farewell cocktail in the evening, many of our guests fondly remembered a different and personal highlight. No doubt we have all been changed by this week’s expedition.
