Monday, November 22, 2010

The First Two Days of the WINGS Galapagos Tour

I just finished my third trip to the Galapagos Islands for WINGS. It was a fantastic tour, missing only one endemic, predictably the Mangrove Finch (which may be conspecific with the Woodpecker Finch anyway). We even saw the Galapagos Martin, a lifer for me.

The following photo hightlights were just from our first two days.

We first spend a half day in the interior of Santa Cruz Island. Here we nailed our targets of Large Tree-Finch, Woodpecker Finch, and Vegetarian Finch. We also went to a ranch where there were several Santa Cruz Giant Tortoises, this one eating impatiens.


The endemic subspecies of Barn Owl, Tyto alba punctatissima was in a building there as well.


We made a half-mile hike towards Media Luna in the highlands to see Galapagos Rail, which we saw briefly, but well.


The next day was spent on Espanola Island to the south.

Espanola Marine Iguana, Amblyrhynchus cristatus venutissimus


Blue-footed Booby and chick


Espanola Lava Lizard female


Espanola Lava Lizard male


Espanola Mockingbird and Marine Iguana


Espanola Mockingbird clan fight


Galapagos Flycatcher


Nestling Waved Albatross


Group walking past Marine Iguanas


Group in Panga – this is how we got from the yacht to the various islands. Our yacht – the wonderfully spacious and comfortable Integrity is in the distant upper right of the photo.


Large Cactus-Finch taking advantage of the moisture and protein in a Galapagos Sea Lion placenta


Nazca Booby


Red-billed Tropicbird right over head


Suckling and mother Galapagos Sea Lion


Swallow-tailed Gull

Friday, November 12, 2010

Off to the Galapagos

Tomorrow morning my group of 13 and I fly from Quito to the Galapagos for a week-long birding and natural history cruise through the islands on the Integrity. This is my third trip to the Galapagos, but my first time in November. We'll be stopping at a couple spots new for me too, so maybe I'll see something new. A migrant from the north, or perhaps Galapagos Martin.

I'll be coming home with a lot of photos, believe me. Here's a very brief sampler from my first trip there in late June, 2007. Enjoy.

Medium Ground-Finch


Vermilion Flycatcher


Galapagos Rail habitat


Galapagos Flycatcher


Woodpecker Finch


Galapagos Mockingbird

Friday, November 5, 2010

Exploring Lobo Canyon

Yesterday I went with Brian McKnight, Jim Hays and Sally Johnsen to explore a rarely visited series of drainages southwest of Amado and on the west slope of the Tumacacori Mountains. (Click on any of the images for a larger version.)

The upper reaches of Sardina and Lobo canyons are in the Atascosa Highlands Christmas Bird Count Circle (a 15-mile-diameter circle centered at N31.47006°, W111.17278°), and that was the main reason for our visit. Brian, Jim, and Sally cover the area just east of here (Murphy Canyon and Bear Grass Tank), but, as they say in a lot of remote places, "you can't get there from here."

We drove down Sardina Canyon from Arivaca Road, crossed over to Moyza Canyon, then back over to Sardina Canyon until, 10 miles later, we entered the CBC circle (recognized when my GPS said we were 7.5 miles from the circle center). This is a typical view of the habitat towards the west – open, rolling desert grasslands.

To the  east are the Tumacacori Mountains. The accent is on the middle syllable, and no, it isn't Spanish.

We arrived at Sardina Well, where a pair of Rufous-winged Sparrows and some Chipping Sparrows and Northern Cardinals were.

From here we continued south and over a ridge into Lobo Canyon (also draining off the Tumacacoris), and the road here passes by a nice thicket of oaks and then to the end of the road near Lobo Tank. The only water-associated birds we saw here were two Killdeer and a Black Phoebe.

Farther up the canyon is some nice oak-juniper woodland, but really good, dense woodland (visible on Google Earth) is yet another 1 1/4-mile hike beyond here.

This yucca seems too narrow-leaved for Yucca baccata, and may be a hybrid between it and Y. elata or Y. madrensis.

There were several stands of this prickly-pear which looks like a green version of the normally purple Santa Rita Prickly-Pear.

I spotted this Black-necked Garter Snake just as it disappeared into a bush and then holed up between some boulders.

Grasshoppers were everywhere, at least 10 species that I could recognize offhand. This is an Arid Lands Grasshopper, Melanoplus aridus.

We left the area via a different route, crossing over the northern Tumacacoris and following the Puerto Canyon drainage. It had some very nice thornscrubby hillsides (characterized by high plant diversity including Hopbush and Kidneywood) as well as some riparian thickets that were full of birds and butterflies. This ungainly tangle is the pea vine Schott's Yellowhood, Nissolia schottii, one of the largest I've seen.

In the only lush grove of willow and sycamores were a Black-throated Gray Warbler and a Cassin's Vireo, and Sally spotted this huge Black Witch, Ascalapha odorata, a vagrant moth from Mexico. Its wingspan is about 8 inches.