Galapagos Vacation
February 1995


Here are some images from photographs which I took during my vacation to the Galapagos Islands in February, 1995. I went with a group organized by the National Center for Science Education. The tour was booked through International Expeditions, Inc., which offers lots of cool tours all over the world.

The Galapagos archipelago is located on the Equator 600 miles due west of Ecuador. I went with a tour group of fifteen people, and we spent a week aboard a 90ft vessel traveling from island to island. Afterward we spent three days in the Andes mountains north of Quito, but I didn't get any good photographs from there.

Click on the small images to get larger ones. In the descriptions, numbers in parentheses are the dimensions of the image (pixels wide by pixels high) and the size of the file (in kilobytes).

This is a marine iguana sunning himself on a rock. That's just about all they do, you know. (862x587; 80KB)

These are Sally Lightfoot crabs, very common on the Islands. (870x512; 80KB) (1020x737; 135KB)


Here we have a couple of Sally Lightfoot crabs dueling in a territorial dispute. (906x651; 178KB)

This species of daisy exists only on the island of Floreana. (684x495; 42KB)

Here we have a couple of shots of flamingos. (599x429; 40KB) (608x491; 33KB)


This is a swallow-tail gull and its chick. These animals are so unaccustomed to predators that they will sit right next to the trail as visitors walk by, allowing for some great photographic oppotunities. (689x509; 54KB)

Here we have a juvenile Galapagos hawk. It's pretty much the only predator in the islands, and it can only go after small prey--an adult iguana would be too big for it. (726x668; 65KB))

This is a blue-footed boobie. His feet really are bright blue. (246x195; 20KB)

This is a masked boobie, attending a couple of eggs. (691x499; 74KB)

This is a land iguana, one of two species on the islands. These suckers have nothing to do but eat all day, so they get to be pretty big, too fat to encompass with two hands. (776x512; 82KB)

The vermillion flycatcher can also be found on the mainland (I saw a few in Ecuador). It's small, maybe 8cm long, but its vivid red color makes it easy to spot. Very lively, very pretty, I think it's my favorite critter of the entire trip. (Although, the scarlet-bellied mountain tanager--found on the mainland--might have won out, had I gotten a picture of it.) (1012x556; 78KB)

This is a Galapagos dove. (492x391; 34KB)

Here we have a Galapagos dove standing next to a marine iguana. The iguana is bright red for mating season; normally it's very dark, to match the lava rocks. ( 766x407; 38KB)

This is a lava gull, member of a very rare species. There are perhaps only 400 of these birds in existence. (584x391; 50KB)

This lava heron was happy to just sit and watch us walk by. (826x437; 60KB)

Lava lizards are found all over the place. This one sits on the highest prominence around to survey his domain. (710x511; 45KB)

This baby Galapagos tortoise is being raised at the Darwin Research Station (N.B.: The link to the Darwin WWW server is very slow) along with many others of various species. They will be re-introduced into the wild in an attempt to keep the species from going extinct. (288x262; 12KB)

Here's a full-grown Galapagos Tortoise, hanging out on a farm in the upland area of Santa Cruz Island. It weighs perhaps 450 pounds. (706x512; 86KB)

The landscape on the tiny island of South Plaza is very colorful, considering it's an arid environment. (648x300; 52KB)

 

Technical info about the equipment used.


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