Dan Suzio Photography: Galápagos Diary, Day 9

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Galápagos Diary, Day 9

Day 9, April 20: Imagining the past

Española Island

The heavy fog, steep cliffs, and rough seas around the western point of Española Island gave us a hint of the isolation and fear that early explorers must have felt when they first traveled to this uninhabited bunch of rocks, six hundred miles from the nearest port. Back at my computer I was inspired by that feeling to create grainy black-and-white versions of some of my photos, imagining I had shot them from the deck of the HMS Beagle.

Marine Iguana in the surf

Nazca Boobies

The day brought us several new species. From our pangas we photographed White-vented Storm-Petrels, tiny seabirds that dance across the surface of the water, picking up bits of fish oil, plankton, and other edible debris with their beaks.

White-vented Storm-Petrel

Later we found a group of about twenty Waved Albatross floating together a few miles offshore. It’s almost breeding season, and they may spend a couple weeks out on the water like this, going to shore in the evenings. By end of April they will all be on shore building their nests and raising the next generation.

Waved Albatross

After lunch, on the other side of the island, one member of the group photographed an Española Mockingbird pecking at a baby sea turtle that had not survived the dangerous walk from its nest to the water. Somehow nobody else had seen it, not even Tui. She said it’s a shot that she has been trying to get. For the rest of us, there were plenty of Española Mockingbirds without baby turtles, Española Lava Lizards, and other critters to keep us happy.