Galapagos Islands Photos and Videos, Part 3

More photos and videos from the Galapagos Islands, including sea lions, marine iguanas, land iguanas, and cute little Galapagos penguins.  The last video of the sea lion mother and pup has us all laughing.

This is the view from the top of the small volcanic Bartholome Island.  In the distance is mostly lava fields and lava cones.  In the middle distance on the right is tall and sharp Pinnacle Rock.  Our guide James told us the Americans used it for artillery target practice at the time of World War II.  I'm not sure that made any real impact on how it looks though.

We found this mother and pup when we landed on Puerto Egas on Santiago island that also had the big land iguanas, herons, gulls, and the wrongly-named fur seals (they're actually a type of sea-lion.  We spent a long time hanging around with these two.  At one point, mom rolled over on her stomach, and the pup started complaining loudly and trying to nuzzle under to get more milk.  They didn't mind a group of 16 standing there watching them for quite a while.  Right there with them were pelicans, crabs, and lizards as well.  

Across from Bartholome was a fantastic, sandy beach.  We had one of our favorite experiences of the trip while we were there.  A group of four Galapagos penguins came along the beach, hunting little fish in the very, very shallow water at our feet.  They came right in front of us, and came back and forth along the beach several times.  Here are a couple short videos of them.

Here's one of the most colorful land iguanas we saw.  Land iguanas are solitary.  You never see big groups of them, like the smaller marine iguanas.  

Speaking of big groups, we walked along the beach on this part of Fernandina and saw several groups of marine iguanas sprawled out like this, literally piled on top of each other, and crawling over each others' heads and backs.  All the time pretty much silently, except when they snort out excess salty water from their noses.  It was funny to watch them do that.  It was sort of like a sudden sneeze of water rocketing out.  

Cormorants on this island have no predators.  Over time, their wings have evolved to be smaller and smaller, until they've become flightless.  Our guide said they may gradually evolve into something like penguin flippers.  We saw a few nesting couples along the beach here.  The mom stays home, incubating the eggs and fixing up the nest, while dad goes out and brings home the seaweed for the nest, as well as fish to regurgitate.  In this photo, we were lucky enough to catch the mom stand up and shuffle around just long enough to see her eggs.  

Jennifer got this great video of a mother and sea lion pup playing in the lava tubes.  This had us all laughing.  

The north end of Isabella, which is a broken volcanic caldera.  Most of the rim has collapsed under the water in the last few million years, but this part of the curved crater remains.  

This was right about the time we passed over the equator.  We all took photos of the navigation system, showing latitude of 0.000.  Pretty amazing.  The captain slowed down the boat so we could all get a look.  At first, I only got a picture as we passed up to 0.001 latitude, so he backed up the boat just enough for me to take a picture at 0.000!  See the GPS?  If you're looking at this on your darn phone, turn it sideways! 

Adios Galapagos!  

One more from our first night.  That was a spectacular one. 

This is the third in a series about our trip.  

Click here for the first, with a lot of great bird photos, as well as a nice land iguana, and more sea lions.  

Click here for the second, which is all about snorkeling, with underwater photos and videos of sea turtles, fish, and marine iguanas.  

Galapagos Photos and Videos, Part 2

Here are more photos (and videos) from our Galapagos trip.  This time, they're mostly water-related.  We went snorkeling most days on the eight-day trip.  The water was as cold as 61 degrees Fahrenheit.  That's cold!  We did have wet suits, but as the name implies, you get wet.  So getting in was quite a shock every time, as ice cold water streamed down your back, and into the suit along your wrists and ankles.  Happily, once we put our masks in the water and started looking around, we would be distracted from the cold pretty quickly.  

Thanks to my friend Rob, who lent me his underwater point-and-shoot camera. I loved it. My first time taking photos underwater.  Almost everywhere we snorkeled, we ended up seeing lots of sea turtles, very close up. 

Rob's camera could also take video.  In one spot, we were literally surrounded by sea turtles feeding on algae on the bottom.  It wasn't very deep at all, and you had to be careful not to run into one turtle swimming past behind you while watching another turtle.  

I love how gracefully they "fly" through the water.  They do look like they're flying.

On Fernandina Island, the sea turtles share the area with huge colonies of marine iguanas.

Marine iguanas evolved in the Galapagos to take advantage of the plentiful underwater algae.  Since they're cold-blooded reptiles, they warm up on black lava beaches, then slip into the cold water to graze. They can stay down for up to an hour at a time, eating algae off the lava bottom.  Here's one who's just entered the water on his way to diving down.  They swim with their arms and legs dangling loosely, and undulate their whole body and tail to move through the water. 

Here the turtles and iguanas share the same area.  This iguana swam right toward me like I wasn't even there.  I got a little worried he was going to run right into me. 

Here's an iguana munching on the algae on the bottom.  

Iguana on the bottom video.

Another flying turtle vid.  It's so hard to hold the camera steady, since the waves are washing you back and forth all over the place.

A couple of other underwater shots.  This is a cool-looking fish called the heiroglyphic hawkfish. Great name for a cool fish. 

We saw schools of these yellow-tailed sturgeon fish wherever we snorkeled.  

There were lots of big starfish, almost a foot across.  I loved the pattern on this one.  Looks almost futuristic and sci-fi to me.  Like it's displaying the polygons of a 3D model of a starfish.  

This is the second article on the trip.  Click here to see the previous article, with fun photos of birds, sea lions, and iguanas.    

Galapagos Animal Photos, Part 1

We had a great trip to the Galapagos Islands in July 2019.  We stayed on a boat for eight whole days, while they took us from one island to the next.  We had two or three hiking, kayaking, or snorkeling excursions every day.

Before we even got on the boat, we had to walk out the pier to get on the zodiacs that would ferry us to our home on the water for the next seven nights.  We passed this mother and child on the pier.

Our very first night on the boat, before we even left harbor, we were treated to the best sunset of the whole trip.  This is my favorite kind of sunset, where there are plenty of nicely shaped clouds, and the sun gets under them and lights them up from below at a low angle that only catches the edges, leaving the rest blue.  If you're thinking these colors are too enhanced, take a look at the pale blue between the oranges and the lower right corner, where everything's still in shadow.  Yes, it was even more impressive in real life.  And it lasted a good while.

By the way, if you're looking at this on your phones, as many of you do, these pictures are almost all in landscape format, so turning your phone sideways will really help you see them better.

For our first hike, we stopped on Seymore Norte, a tiny island packed with most of the really famous types of birds the Galapagos Islands are known for.  We passed frigate birds, their nests, and their babies every fifty feet on the trail.  They paid us no attention.

Our fantastic guide, James, told us it takes the males multiple days to get their throats this puffed up.  The females are looking for the sexiest puffed up throats they can find.  This sure seems like a case of sexual selection working against natural selection!  But, at least they don't have to worry about predators attacking them while they're in this state, since there are no frigate bird predators in the Galapagos Islands.  

Amidst all the hubbub about the frigate birds, our group walked right past this nest without even seeing this cute little Galapagos dove nesting in her cactus.  Jennifer happened to notice the nest just as the group had moved on to see a huge land iguana another fifty feet down the trail.

Minutes later, we came across this guy, about two and half feet long, hanging out under his cactus.  On this island, each big male land iguana sort of "owns" a cactus, which is the home base of his territory.  Just as James said, there would only ever be one of these guys at any given cactus we passed. 

Love the colors and textures on this guy.

Only meters away from our land iguana pal, we came upon this cactus finch, flitting around, and munching on the insides of this prickly pear.  This type of finch evolved to be able to get past the cactus' defenses.

I tell you, I think they choose this island to go to first because it really wows you right off the bat.  I don't think we ever saw this many types of animals in one place again for the rest of the trip, unless you count underwater, where we saw a great variety several times snorkeling.  This is a yellow warbler.  This is really the only bird in the islands with spectacularly-colored feathers.  He came and landed on this bush while we were right there, and hopped back and forth on the branches. He moved so quickly, I ended up with a bunch of blurry shots and a few sharp ones. 

And now we come to the famous blue-footed boobies.  Of course, they sell all sorts of T-shirts with sayings like "I saw boobies" and "I love boobies" in the few towns in the Galapagos.  We saw lots of them, on multiple islands. Having a group of 16 people traipse past wasn't enough to get this one to move.

This juvenile is halfway between down and feathers. I guess that's the mother in back.

The Galapagos certainly didn't disappoint.  This is a great example, where just a bit further down the trail, we ran into these two blue-footed boobies right when the male was doing his mating dance to impress the female.  

Here she's warming up to his proposal.

Mutual appreciation society, as they mirror each other's dramatic poses.  We'd seen documentaries with this exact dance in them, and here it was right in front of us.

On our way back, we passed a bunch of sea lions resting on the beach. I think that's a frigate bird chick in the rear.

We think that might be Daphne Major island in the background, the one whose finch population has been the studied for the last thirty years.  This study is discussed in great detail in the book The Beak of the Finch, A Story of Evolution in Our Time.  We'd been reading that book in preparation for the trip, on the recommendation of our friend Julie.

We saw lots of pairs of sea lions in this affectionate napping arrangement during the trip.  Often one would rest a flipper on the side of the other.

A frigate bird female in her nest.

Goodbye North Seymour.  This sea lion was pretty close to the spot where the Zodiac boats dropped off visitors, but the sound of the outboard motor didn't disturb him.  We were the only group on the island the whole time we were there.  The Ecuadorans are managing the Galapagos beautifully. In almost all cases, we were the only group in the area wherever we went.  Other groups might be departing just as we arrived, or they might arrive just as we departed, but rarely were two groups on land at the same time.  We really had the place to ourselves.  No big crowds or competition for a view anywhere the whole trip.  That was great.

This is the first of a few posts on our trip.  Hope you enjoy!

Click this sentence to see my second post of mostly underwater shots.

Utah's Canyonlands National Park, Islands in the Sky Section

The Islands in the Sky section of Canyonlands didn't have many hikes of any length.  We drove to various areas, and took a few short hikes.  I assume the park is called Islands in the Sky because you're sort of on a giant mesa, with cliffs thousands of feet high all the way around.  Everywhere you go, you have great views looking out over canyons, with mountains a hundred miles away.

There are no rails anywhere along this hike, and there are thousand-foot plus drops all the way.  Makes for great views, but be careful!

Canyonlands is certainly an appropriate name for this place.  This is a canyon inside a canyon.  I really love the sharp edges of the canyon, and how they're outlined with white rock. Almost like an artist trying to emphasize an edge.  

Another canyon in a canyon.  A view that goes on for a hundred miles, as promised. I also love the way the shrubs have spaced themselves fairly evenly in the foreground.  I assume the spacing is caused by the amount of water available. 

What's the name for a formation like this?  Not quite a mesa.  More like a tower or a castle.  

This arch created a frame for an incredible view of the canyons and snow-capped mountains way beyond.  It's close to parking, and swarmed with visitors.  I had to dodge and weave constantly to avoid getting photo-bombed. 

Wow. 

An infinity of canyons.  Settler caravans looked on this view and despaired. 

If you enjoyed these, please take a look at my other posts from our hiking trip to Moab, Utah. 

Arches National Park, Part 1

Arches National Park, Part 2

Canyonlands National Park, The Needles Section

The Needles Section of Utah's Canyonlands National Park

We visited Canyonlands National Park at the beginning of June.  The park is so big that there are different sections with different entrances that must be over 70 miles apart.  The entrance to the Needles section is about an hour and a half drive from Moab, and the entrances to the Islands in the Sky section is about a half hour from Moab in the other direction.

We went to The Needles first.  It's far from any development, so there are very few visitors compared with Arches National Park.  On our hike, we saw a total of maybe twenty people over a four hour period, which is really nice.  Several of those were folks who had spent the night and were on their way out with their camping gear.  Needles is characterized by this white layer of rock that forms rounded caps on columns of red rock all over the park.  This photo shows a tiny sample of the thousands everywhere.  

The rocks are all very layered, created by sediment settling out of a sea here many millions of years ago.  The white rock is a harder layer than the others, so that's why it's resisted being eroded away longer than the red,forming these caps and sheltering the other red rock underneath, which leads to the columns. 

This was the best view we saw on the Chesler Park trail.  This made for a great shady place to hvae lunch while looking out over this great view.  A couple of crows came and sat on a ledge and waited for us to finish lunch so they could scrabble for crumbs afterward.  They were very persistent.  They sort of acted like they might be a couple, as they would take off together and coast around in a circle, then land back on the same ledge and walk back and forth.  

In this one, these white mushroom top shapes are made of the white rock that is harder than the red.  You can see some layers of white rock in the ridge standing behind the mushrooms in the front.  This is a closer view from nearly the same spot as the photo above.  

So many layers visible in this rock. 

All the different textures make this one good for a black and white version. 

A whole area of these mushroom columns has fallen over sideways here.  

This crow arrived soon after we pulled up to our second hike of the day.  I dropped a crumb on the ground when I stood up from the car.  He was on the car, and then on the crumb within seconds of us stepping away.   

This was about a one and a half hour hike, which gave some great views for the effort.  

I really loved all the trees out there.  Many of them look dead, but aren't.  Unfortunately, this tree is actually dead.  The ones that are alive still have at least one green branch.  In the lower left of this photo, you can see a huge exposed root of this tree. I love how it's such a twisted spiral, which was actually pretty common. Somehow these trees manage to survive in really dry, rocky places.  I must have taken a hundred pictures of gnarled old trees on all the hikes in Utah.  

That's all for The Needles section of Canyonlands National Park.  Next up, the Islands in the Sky section of Canyonlands.  

If you liked these, you can also check out the first set of photos from Arches National Park, and the second set of photos from Arches National Park.