Genovesa Island lies to the northwest of the Galapagos archipelago ... it's a shield volcano - (shallow-sloping sides formed from fluid lava flows that can travel long distances across slight inclines, resulting in their relatively flat, broad profile). Close to being my favourite island ... and what a sight! The island itself is about 5 square miles height, around 200 feet high, with a volcanic caldera whose walls has collapsed, forming the beautiful Darwin Bay, all surrounded by cliffs in a horse-shoe shape. The picture above was borrowed from Wiki ... This place is also known as Bird Island because of the large and varied bird colonies which nest here. There are huge numbers of Frigate birds, Nazca Boobies, Swallow-tailed Gulls, Storm Petrels, Tropic-birds, Darwin's finches, and Galápagos Mockingbirds and was the only place we saw Red-footed Boobies....lots of them!What did we do? Well, after our overnight passage (across the Equator!) we breakfasted and then had a wet landing, onto the white coral sands of Darwin Bay, where there were just thousands of birds bustling with activity - breeding, raising chicks, courting ... fabulous. Great Frigate birds, Yellow-crowned and Lava herons, and as we moved along a set of sheltered pools, Swallow-tailed Gulls, (the only nocturnal gulls in the world), supplemented by Red–billed tropic birds, that come and go from their nests, trailing long extravagant kite-like tails. The Red-footed Boobies
were grasping with their webbed feet, (impressive), the branches of the scrubby bushes (and often palo santo trees, Bursera graveolens - the incense tree) they nested in ...I went deep water snorkelling along the cliff edge inside the bay whilst Margaret had a swim from the beach with Nina and Mark. After an Ecuadorian lunch on board [potato soup, avocado & cheese prawns, suckling pig, beef, chicken, figs in syrup, cookies with fudge in them!] and then a lecture on the geology of the Galapagos, we chilled out until late afternoon/early evening (some people even had a nap!). We wanted the heat of the sun to pass for our next trip - and also to be close to the end of the day. Margaret took a personalised panga tour along the cliffs of the bay with Nina. The rest of us, at around 5.30 pm, headed across the bay for a dry landing at the foot of 'Prince Phillip’s Steps', named after his visit in 1964. The 80 foot, or so, stairway leads to a narrow stretch of land that opens out onto the plateau surrounding Darwin Bay, and extends to form the north-eastern side of the island.
Here we saw Red-footed boobies, again wrapping their webbed feet around branches to perch in the bushes, and, as if in contrast, their Nazca Booby relatives occupying the scrubby rocks beyond. Crossing this sparse vegetation, we came to a broad lava field that extends towards the sea where Storm Petrels flutter out to sea for food,
returning to nest in the crevices and cracks in the lava field. Here we watched - transfixed - as a short-eared owl hunted, low and often landing and hiding , in the lava field. The storm petrels have a different life style here, from any of the kind elsewhere in the world, as they are active in the daytime. They timed their return to the nest as dusk is due to try to avoid the owl ... but as we witnessed ... to no avail in some cases! Then it was back to the ship, and down the steps ... heading for dinner and more of the BBC series 'Galapagos' ... and reflect on a great day.
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