galapagos, day 3
by sam on 08/26/2013On Monday, we were at Floreana island, with a morning for snorkeling (and as such, no pictures yet). In the afternoon, we went for Zodiac rides around the island looking for extremely rare Floreana Mockingbirds, which we didn’t find. We did find, however, an extremely out-of-place (and skinny) Juan Fernandez fur seal, from Juan Fernandez island off the coast of Chile, who had clearly gotten lost somewhere and found a resting place on the island. Our naturalist guide for the afternoon, Carlos, actually flipped out at the sighting, because there have only been 3 or 4 ever seen on the islands, and this is the first one he’s encountered. So that was exciting. Other sightings on Monday included swallow-tailed herons, galapagos great egrets, lava herons, and, as always, sea lions.
We also made a stop at an inlet called Post Office Bay, which is a traditional spot for leaving postcards. The tradition involves new visitors looking through the cards that have been left previously and, if they find an address that is near their home, promising to hand deliver the card when they return to civilization. Unfortunately, there was nothing near NYC, so I didn’t get to take anything with me.
