Signs of Life in Estabrook Park

One last look around…

Today, finally, is an R&R day with no scheduled activities, so I got to have a nap this afternoon and write this post while it’s still light outside. Woo hoo! Deb and I took the morning to visit a beach on the south side of the island and a few miles from town: Playa Loberia. There we saw a few shorebirds and a few frigatebirds, but the more interesting sights came another thousand yards down the coast, where the ground rises up to form a cliff over the water: Acantilado La Loberia.

In addition to a few blue-footed boobies resting on ledges, there were a dozen or more swallow-tailed gulls, which we first saw just yesterday. We did get to see some fly this time, so now we know what their swallowtails look like, but the salt spray from the waves crashing below and the stiff onshore breeze really put a damper on my ability to capture that on film. Sorry. Instead, here’s a pair canoodling right at the top so I could get out of the spray and breeze to capture a nice image for you. Aren’t they just adorable?

I still have a few pictures from yesterday that I was too tired to include in yesterday’s post, so here are a pair of Nazca boobies fending off a hungry magnificent frigatebird. I just read today that frigatebirds “are referred to as kleptoparasites as they occasionally rob other seabirds for food, and are known to snatch seabird chicks from the nest.” Yikes!

Here’s a Galapagos shearwater (Puffinus subalaris), also from yesterday and which I read get their name from using “a ‘shearing’ flight technique (flying very close to the water and seemingly or actually cutting or ‘shearing’ the waves with the tips of their wings) to move across wave fronts with the minimum of active flight.” Deb and I had glimpsed them racing over the water between the boats once or twice during our morning survey of the harbor, but I didn’t have a presentable image until this one.

On the hike to the last snorkeling site yesterday, Deb spotted this handsome Hudsonian whimbrel skulking around the water’s edge. I last showed you one on Caye Caulker, and I read that they “[breed] on the Arctic tundra and [winter] on coastlines as far south as Tierra del Fuego,” so they sure do get around.

Finally, in addition to the enormous marine iguanas I’ve alread shown you, we saw several San Cristóbal lava lizards (Microlophus bivittatus) on our hike today, and here’s a male. They’re endemic to San Cristóbal and currently under threat by invasive cats on the island, so I appreciate the free spay and neuter clinic that WorldVets put on this week.

Deb and I start our treks home tomorrow with a flight back to the mainland, where I have a hope of one more chance to see some wildlife in Guayaquil before the final leg back to the States. For the score keepers at home, it appears as though we will have seen 30 species of birds on San Cristóbal, of which 15 are brand new to me, and 8 are endemic to these islands, including 5 that even have “lava”, “Galapágos”, or “San Cristóbal” in their names. Not too bad for a “work trip,” in my humble opinion.

A heck of a lot more than a three-hour tour…

Today most of the group, including Deb and me, took a boat tour of various snorkeling and nesting sites around the island. At the first stop, not far from Puerto Baquerizo Moreno harbor, where we started, everyone hopped into the water to check out the fish, but there were plenty of birds swirling around in the air, so I stayed on the boat with the crew to see who I could see.

There were frigatebirds, boobies, and noddies, but the star of the show has got to be this red-billed tropic bird (Phaethon aethereus). It never landed, but kept swooping past the boat as it fished at the base of the cliff, and it is a miracle that I got this one picture to look presentable.

At the next stop, everyone stayed in the boat, and I finally got a nice portrait of a brown noddy (Anous stolidus). Deb and I have seen them fishing in the harbor, and I thought for sure that I had shown you one already, but I guess I never thought the pictures were good enough, until now.

I believe there was another snorkeling opportunity, but I don’t have an underwater camera, so I stayed on the surface again. It was either then or another stop soon after that we got to see some of these swallow-tailed gulls (Creagrus furcatus). We didn’t see any fly, so we couldn’t see their swallow tails, but that red eye ring sure is striking enough on its own. Isn’t it?

Finally, I’ve gotta wrap this up soon because it was another very long day, and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. So far, we’ve seen blue-footed boobies and Nazca boobies, but today we also got to see a few of the fabled red-footed boobies (Sula sula). Some even had chicks! Woo hoo!

All morning, we cruised down the leeward side of the island, and the seas were nice and calm. After lunch, however, we turned the corner to head home on the windward side, and the seas were quite a bit rougher. Oof! That was a long ride home, but there was one snorkeling stop along the way, and that’s where Deb finally got to swim with the sea turtles she’s been hoping to see since our visit to Isla de la Plata. Yay!

A quip too witty for my sleepy brain…

It was a big last day at the vet clinic today, and I am both thrilled to have had the opportunity to participate and thrilled that that part of the trip is finished. Tomorrow we’re going on a boat ride around the island to see what there is to see.

Before we get out of town, however, here are a few more sights to be seen in the harbor just a few steps from our hostel. First, we have one of the many magnificent frigatebird that come to visit the harbor.

Next, we have one of three Elliot’s storm-petrels (Oceanites gracilis) we’ve seen fishing on the harbor for the last three days. They are one of the smallest seabirds, and their legs do a meager job of supporting them on land.

Finally, we have brown pelicans, whom we’ve seen before, but never quite this close.

Just coasting in the archipelago…

It was a long day at the clinic, but I have a few pictures saved up from previous days to show you some today.

First up, we have a ruddy turnstone, which we’ve also seen on McKinley Beach in Milwaukee. As with the semipalmated plover and the American oystercatchers I’ve already shown you, however the ruddies here are surprisingly comfortable with people. I read that birds can quickly pick up cues from locals, so that’s probably part of the story.

I already showed you a lava heron on my first day here, but here’s a young one looking even more like a green heron, especially a young one.

I was happy to find a smooth-billed ani here, which we’ve seen once before in the Brazilian Amazon, …

and it turns out, as with the grooved-billed anis in Belize, they like to cluster up.

Back at Galapaguera de Cerro Colorado, in addition to the giant tortoises, I also spotted this dragonfly, which turns out to be a striped saddlebags (Tramea darwini), in the same genus as the black and red saddlebags we’ve seen in Estabrook Park. It appears that there is some reorganization going on with its scientific name now that “sequencing of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA” has shown that Tramea darwini “is conspecific with Tramea calverti.” Thus, “following the principle of priority in taxonomic nomenclature, Tramea calverti[, named by Muttkowski in 1910] should hereafter be considered a junior synonym of Tramea darwini[, named by Kirby in 1889.]” Wild, but poor Muttkowski, eh?

That’s a wrap for today, and we have one more day in the clinic till we are set free to explore the island further. In the meantime, I’m sure I’ll come up with something for you.

Wow! The tortoises sure are huge here…

Today was the first day of working at the WorldVets clinic here in town, and my job was cleaning the surgical instruments after use, packing them up into specific kits, and sterilizing those kits in an autoclave. It was a long day and we did our best to help reduce the number of feral animals threatening the endemic local critters.

Before breakfast, however, my sister and I hit the waterfront again, and this time we found this darling little semipalmated plover. You may recall that we just saw one in New Haven harbor, but this one let us have a much better look.

Yesterday, before we got to work, we all took a short tour of the island, and the first stop was Galapaguera de Cerro Colorado, a reserve for the Galápagos giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger), specifically the chathamensis subspecies, which has “a wide, black shell, its shape intermediate between the saddle-backed and domed subspecies.” They are just as enormous as advertised and surprisingly active.

From there, we headed to the beach at Puerto Chino, and while Deb and I were searching for exotic and rare species, a pair of American oystercatchers flew in and began strutting around on the beach. This is another species we just saw in New Haven, where they really kept their distance. Here, on the other hand, I couldn’t back up fast enough to get the whole bird in the frame.

Finally, we stopped at the Biologial Reserve Of San Cristóbal to visit the Laguna El Junco in the caldera of a long-extinct volcano. It was mostly fogged/clouded in, which creates a unique biome, but doesn’t lend itself to spotting wildlife. As crazy luck would have it, though, on the climb back out of the caldera, I spotted this little cutie on the side of the trail. I had just joked a couple days ago with Deb about there being a “warbler-finch” here, and lo and behold, here it was, the grey warbler-finch (Certhidea fusca).

Lastly, I did manage a butterfly picture back at the beach, and this tiny creature turns out to be a Ramon blue (Hemiargus ramon).

Okay. Now it’s late, you’re probably asleep already, and I wish I was, so I’m gonna stick a fork in this post and hit the sack.

More from San Cristóbal Island…

As promised, we have blue-footed boobies here, and this one is on break from fishing in the harbor. I was tempted to make a booby joke, but I’ve opted not to stoop so low, for once.

Less flashy, perhaps, but no less surprising in appearance is the lava gull (Leucophaeus fuliginosus), which are almost the same color, by some odd coincidence, as the lava heron I showed you yesterday. They are supposed to be the only gull with all dark plumage, and they are “endemic to Galápagos,” so there’s that.

Another creature “found only on the Galápagos Islands,” is the marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus). Like the sea lions I mentioned yesterday and many of the birds here, they seem totally unconcerned by people and lounge all along the waterfront here in town.

The most common bird we’ve seen, at least in town and the park nearby, is this small ground-finch (Geospiza fuliginosa). It is “one of Darwin’s finches[, and is also] endemic to the Galápagos Islands[,” but is actually] in the tanager family, Thraupidae. “Come on, Charles!”

Finally, Deb and I took a hike yesterday afternoon in woods north of town and around the San Cristóbal Gianni Arismendy Environmental Interpretation Center. There we saw smooth-billed anis, like the one I showed you from Brazil back in ’23, more ground finches, and yellow warblers, but the star of that show has to be this darling Galapagos flycatcher (Myiarchus magnirostris), which is one more creature “endemic to Galápagos.”

That’s gonna be it for fun and games for a while. Tomorrow we all start working at the nearby veterinary clinic, and I learned today that my responsibility will be cleaning, sorting, and sterilizing the surgical instruments. I’ve still got plenty of pictures to keep sending you daily posts, but wish me luck in my new role tomorrow.

Greetings from the Galapagos!

Deb and I did both arrive safely on San Cristóbal Island in the Galapagos archipelago this morning, though my trip was less stressful than Deb’s. She had a seven-hour delay in Fort Lauderdale yesterday, but we had built enough buffer into our schedule to absorb that, thank goodness.

Once we arrived, we got right to work on seeing who we could find, and this little darling, a mangrove yellow warbler (Setophaga petechia), didn’t even wait until we had finished our lunch before starting the show. I’ve seen them before, in Belize, but I don’t believe I’ve had a picture to show you until now, so ta da!

This next bird looks just like the green herons we see in Estabrook, but just a lot darker, and that makes it our very first lava heron (Butorides sundevalli), whose range does not extend beyond these islands. Wow!

There are sea lions everywhere, on the beach, on the rocks, on the sidewalk, and even on the park benches. It is really wild. Here’s one on the beach who stayed in this pose long enough to make me think it was sleeping that way.

The sea lions and their pups make quite a racket, too, and they sound like goats and lambs, which really gives the place a barnyard or even petting zoo vibe. The noisiest bird, however, was this San Cristobal Mockingbird (Mimus melanotis). It is “endemic to Galápagos, [and] found only on San Cristóbal Island.” Yikes! That has got to be the smallest range of any bird I’ve ever seen.

Finally, I did see a couple of dragon flies and a couple of small blue butterflies, but none of them would sit for a picture. Happily, the rocks along the water were literally crawling with crabs, and some of them were this remarkably colored Sally Lightfoot crab (Grapsus grapsus), “one of the most common crabs along the western coast of the Americas.” Talk about extremes, eh?

I’ve got more to show, but it’s late already, and who knows what, if anything, we’ll see tomorrow, so I’ll just keep those in reserve for now.

The poor man’s Galapagos…

Now that I’m waiting at my gate in Chicago, I’ve got some time to tap this out with my two thumbs. Any spelling or grammatical errors are strictly their fault.

As I mentioned yesterday, my sister is dragging me to San Cristobal in the Galapagos islands. This will be the first visit for the both of us, but we have been to Ecuador before.

Back in 2017, before this whole Estabrook project got started, Anne had research to do in Ecuador, so we spent the summer in fabulous Quito, the capital. While we were there, both my sisters came for a visit, and when a stop in the Galapagos became impractical, Anne suggested we try Isla de la Plata, the “poor man’s Galapagos.” Instead of an hour forty-five flight, it’s just a short speedboat ride from the mainland.

So, that’s what we did, and here is some of the spectacular wildlife we saw.

First up is the amazing blue-footed booby. There were several just standing around on the ground, and a couple of times we even got to skirt around them as we strolled down the trail.

Then there were nesting magnificent frigatebirds, and that adjective is actually part of their name, not an editorial judgement on my part.

Finally, for the avian world, we saw one long-tailed mockingbird, which might not be what you would call “magnificent”, but is no less wonderful, I’m sure.

If you’re wondering to yourself, “they took a boat ride at the equator, where’s the sealife?” Well, here you go. There were enormous sea turtles in the water around the island, and here’s one of them.

Finally, we got to see a few whales on the ride to and from the island, and my sister Deb scored a home run when she snapped this pic witb her cell phone. What a sight, eh?

So, now we’re gonna go and see if a real Galapagos island can beat that. I’ve packed my camera, and I’ll do my best to keep you posted.

Lots of little migrators…

Oof! It’s been a day. You’ll be stunned to learn that I’m taking off again first thing tomorrow morning, so I had a ton of things to get done today, and I suspect that I haven’t adulted like this since before the pandemic.

Anyway, I did get into Estabrook this morning, and the weather was quite nice. Even better, we had a few new warblers, mostly beside the river at the north end, and here’s a female or immature Blackpoll warbler.

This Swainson’s thrush caught me by surprise, not only for perching out in the open like this, but also for standing there long enough for me to bring my camera to my eye, adjust a setting or two, and get this nice picture. “Thanks, Darlin’!”

This female or immature magnolia warbler, on the other hand, was behaving the way most of the birds were this morning: frantically darting around in a leafy tree hunting for bugs.

This little cutie was also in and out of leafy trees more than I would have expected from an eastern wood-pewee, so I thought maybe it was a least flycatcher instead, but I was mistaken. An eastern wood-pewee it is.

There were several American redstarts, but they are about as flighty as they come, so I was thrilled to catch this one.

In what’s left of the weeds beside the soccer fields at the south end, the common yellowthroat I’ve been hearing and glimpsing for a few days finally relented and let me have a quick look, although he did manage to obscure his namesake yellow throat behind a leaf. Ah well. We take what we can get, right?

Finally, there are still plenty of monarchs around, and here’s one topping up on some goldenrod not far from the yellowthroat.

As for the trip I mentioned above, this time it’s my sister’s idea, and we’re going to the Galapagos Islands for a week with WorldVets, a volunteer organization that “works to bring veterinary services to underserved areas of the world.” Anne’s already been there, so she’s sitting this one out. As usual, I’ll do my best to keep you posted while I’m away.

A morning better than I had expected…

The thunderstorms had finished rolling through by sunrise this morning, so I was able to get out earlier than I had expected.

My first treat came very early, as I was crossing Wilson Dr, when I heard the call of a peregrine falcon high overhead. Happily, it wasn’t going anywhere fast, and I was able to catch sight of it as it glided in for a landing on the WITI TV tower at the far south end of the park. Then, it was kind enough to hang out while I hustled around to the west side, where it had landed, and it even put on a bit of a show with its wings out in the breeze. “Thanks, Sweet Pea!”

My next surprise came at the pond, where I found this dejected-looking solitary sandpiper resting on a log. I read that they are mostly night migrators, so perhaps it was grounded by last night’s storms and is now just resting up to try again tonight.

It wasn’t so much of a surprise to see this green heron, since we’ve been seeing plenty of them lately, but it was a treat that it flew in to perch so close while I was working on the best sandpiper picture I could muster.

I did see at least one warbler, but it was quite shy, and my pictures are barely good enough for an ID, so let’s just skip straight to the bugs. Here’s a cabbage white butterfly sporting a very pleasant creamy yellow hue.

And here’s our first New England aster of the fall season. When I first saw it, I thought to myself, “that’s lovely, of course, but a pretty insect would really put a cherry on top.” And then, as if on cue, this tiny bicolored striped sweat bee buzzed in and really made the picture.

We’ve seen them before, and the ones I usually see have black and white stripes, so I thought this one must be someone else. Instead, it turns out that females have the black and white stripes, while males have black and yellow stripes, so that’s who this guy is. That also explains why he’s not collecting pollen and doesn’t even have the dense hairs on his hind legs, called scopa, for holding it, as she did. In fact, I read further that no male bees do, the lazy bums.

I see that the forecast is looking pretty good for tomorrow morning, so let’s hope it brings me better luck with the warblers.