August 2021

Galapagos Islands

11 days 54 species 32 lifers View on eBird

Even though the Galapagos Islands have a relatively low bird species abundance, the species they do have are quite unique. I found the birds and other wildlife to be quite approachable which afforded great photo ops. I went to the islands of Santa Cruz, Isabella, San Cristobol, and a short trip to Floreana. The purpose of my trip was not soley birding, so I didn’t make it out to the far side of Isabella where the Flightless Cormorants are found.

**Galapagos Penguin** Lifer View on eBird

**Waved Albatross** Lifer View on eBird
I had the best success with Waved Albatross on the boats between the islands.

**Red-billed Tropicbird** Lifer View on eBird

Unfortunately I didn’t do quite as well with the endemic shearwater and petrel.

**Galapagos Shearwater** Lifer View on eBird

**Galapagos Petrel** Lifer View on eBird

**Dark-billed Cuckoo** Lifer View on eBird
I thought I would have a difficult time with these, but after searching for and finding this one I incidentally saw several more

**Galapagos Rail** Lifer View on eBird
This was possibly the biggest highlight of the trip. They're extremely secretive and very few people have photos of them at all. I was fortunate enough to get amazing views after putting in quite a bit of effort researching and searching in the field.

**San Cristobal Mockingbird** View on eBird

**Floreana Mockingbird** Lifer View on eBird
Evidently at one point they moved all the Floreana Mockingbirds onto one or two offshore "rocks". Our boat circled one of them and I was eventually able to spot one on a cactus. There's only about 750 left in the wild, 70 of which were evidently on the rock we visited (Champion).

**Galapagos Flycatcher** Lifer View on eBird

**Short-eared Owl (Galapagos)** View on eBird
This was a pleasant surprise. I randomly came across it while out cycling the highlands of Santa Cruz in search of a Brujo Flycatcher. I only ever saw a Brujo briefly from a bus.

**Green Warbler-Finch** Lifer View on eBird

At the end of the trip I hiked the Sierra Negra volcano on Isabella. I had several target species including the Hawk and Martin for which I thought my chances were pretty low. Thankfully I had great success with both!

**Galapagos Martin** Lifer View on eBird

The finches were kinda tough to identify, but thankfully I saw so many that I was able to feel confident about my identifications. Some have such massive bills that they’re undoubtedly Large Ground-Finch, and some islands have Medium-Ground Finches but not Large, so it all worked out.

**Small Ground-Finch** Lifer View on eBird

**Vegetarian Finch** Lifer View on eBird
Such a cool name!

**Woodpecker Finch** Lifer View on eBird

**Large Ground-Finch** Lifer View on eBird

**Common Cactus-Finch** Lifer View on eBird

Some additional shots from the trip: