Española, or Hood Island, is the oldest one in Galapagos, at approximately four million years of age. These islands have given species a lot of time to evolve in isolation, but even though this is an old island, if you compare its age to the age of the planet itself, which is around 6.4 billion years, we could still see Española as a young formation. As we started to walk among the lava we could see that erosion had converted the lava flows into boulders. The strenuous walk took us to the nesting ground of the waved albatross, one of the part-time inhabitants of this place. We were lucky enough to see the first pair of males circling the landing area and eventually landing, what an incredible sighting this was and how worthwhile if made the walk for us.
The albatross is an oceanic bird that only comes to land to reproduce. They have chosen this particular island because here they find cliffs from where they can take off in flight. Being oceanic, they are big and need the help of the wind to make it aloft.
The mockingbird of Española is one of the four present on the island, and so far we have had a chance to see two of the four species found in the Galapagos. They are one of the species that got Darwin’s attention back in 1835, he collected three out of the four noticing how they have some physical differences and he noted that “there is a difference between the inhabitants of the different islands.”
As we continued to hike along the trail, we had a chance to see the entire breeding cycle of the Nazca boobies. There were couples courting, couples making a nest, couples preening each other, parents feeding chicks, and independent chicks defying hawks. His chicks already know that they are too big for them, so they won’t be eaten anymore.
As we returned to the ship at sunset, we understood how these fragile places need to be conserved, not only for us to see, but for the animal species that belong here and own these islands.
