Another great bird to watch we found at Punta Suarez on Española Island. It is the waved albatross and is endemic to the Galapagos. If you go to the Galapagos in December through April, you will likely not see these birds because they will have migrated to the coasts of Ecuador and Peru. We saw so many of these birds all over this island and we able to come within feet of them. This first picture is a common scene that we saw all over with the male and female sitting together about to do their courtship dance. These birds only have one partner throughout their lives and before they choose a partner, they ´court´ them for quite a while to decide if they are compatible. If one of the pair dies, the other will never mate again. How sweet they are! In the picture after, there are two albatrosses dancing, but if you look closely, you can see a baby albatross behind them.
Their eggs are the biggest in the islands and are very strong. Here is Monica, our great guide holding one up that has already been hatched. Unfortunately, we also saw a few lone eggs laying around without parents. One thing that is really interesting is that if one couple looses an egg and finds one that is an orphan, they will take that egg on as their own and raise the young. They all work as a community!
It was difficult to get a good video of the courtship dance up close, but hopefully you can see their movements and hear the great sounds that their beaks make.
The last bird that we saw here was the small mockingbird. It came up so close to us, as you can see here! Monica told us that many times, the bird would come up to tourist´s bags and take anything it could away with it.
One last picture to show the great scenery of both Scott´s and my favorite island.
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