Today we had a wonderful day on Española Island. The day was glorious; the sun was shining brightly and we had very few clouds in the sky. In the morning during our walk at Punta Suarez something extraordinary happened. We had a very unusual sighting, for this time of the year, of a couple of albatrosses still on the island. Albatrosses are supposed to leave Española by the last week in December. By this time they should be fishing the waters off the coast of Peru and mainland Ecuador.
During this morning's walk we were also fortunate to see many adult Nazca boobies with eggs and chicks! These beautiful, white birds and their offspring delighted our visitors. In today's picture we can appreciate one of the tiny chicks sitting next to its parent. The chick is just a few days old; you can compare its size with the parent's feet.
The Nazca boobies (Sula grantii) are the largest of the three species of boobies that occur in Galapagos. They lay two eggs, five to six days apart, but only ever raise one chick. Their incubation period is 40 days. When both eggs hatch, the oldest one has a developmental and size advantage, and invariably ejects its sibling from the nest. Parents do not protect the younger chick and it is quickly scavenged by mockingbirds, frigates or crabs. Or it many die from heat stroke and exposure to the strong equatorial sun. This bizarre behavior is known as "siblicide". Siblicide can be explained with the fact that Nazca boobies have a hatching success of only about 60 % of their eggs. Therefore the second egg is "insurance" to back up the first egg. If the first egg doesn't hatch or the first tiny chick can not survive, the second one replaces it.
In the afternoon we had one of the best snorkel trips in weeks at Roca Tortuga near Gardner Bay. Hundreds of colorful fish, white-tipped reef sharks, marine turtles and rays were spotted in the calm and crystal clear waters.
