Well it has been a great couple of weeks at home, with an opportunity to catch up on things at home, visit friends, and a bit of mountain biking as well. Been trying to spend some time updating our website -
Wrybill Birding Tours, NZ - and after changing over to the new site at the end of May it is looking pretty good. I had hoped to spend a little time on my own website -
Eco-Vista: Photography & Research - but this didn't happen. I want to give the galleries a major overhaul and start adding in some new images...but where does the time go!
So, now it is the evening before leaving, I have just bottled 18 litres of beer (damn nice it is too!), and about to have dinner and then put down a beer to ferment whilst I am away for the next wee while. Luckily with the
WilliamsWarn system I have it is so automated, I just need to get the temperature turned down in about 10 days and it can sit there until I get back...to drink it! Perfect!
The Galapagos was just an incredible trip - everything I hoped it would be and more. We had two fantastic cruises, visiting much of the Archipelago over the two weeks. We had a great team working onboard and really fun times, and a great group of guests on each trip. It is certainly a place I'd love to get back to and hope I get the opportunity at some stage. With little time to write, I figured a few visual highlights could do the talking for me...enjoy!
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| Espanola mockingbirds...doing what the Galapagos mockingbirds do! |
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| We watched a pair of waved albatross with a third interloper for almost an hour, what awesome birds! |
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| Sunset on Espanola with Nazca boobies silhouetted |
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| The ever present Sally lightfoot crab |
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| Frigates coming in to take fish scraps from the fish market at Puerto Ayora |
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| Possibly one of the most stunning gulls in not such a stunning pose! |
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| Male great frigate doing his thing |
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| Sunset in Darwin Bay, Genovesa Island |
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| Blue-footed booby getting into it |
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| A rather rare bird these days, male Vermillion flycatcher in the setting sun |
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| Flightless cormorant, what a cool bird! |
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| Lava cactus, growing, rather unsurprisingly, out of the lava on Fernandina |
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| Galapagos penguin and a marine iguana |
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| Galapagos hawk 'playing' with a ghost crab |
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| Blue-footed boobies diving for fish just off the beach |
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| Male frigate bird with a beak full of small fish |
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| Male frigatebird scooping up fish by the beakful |
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| Great blue heron tossing a fish around |
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| Spines on a prickley pear cactus |
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| Woodpecker finch, the last species I got to see, having seen most of the finches |
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| Sunset on our last evening in the Galapagos |
