Continuing with our visit to Genovesa island, today we add several videos showing some species already available in the guide, as this Great Blue Heron and this Brown Pelican resting in the beach, showing this coastal habitat, or the Blue-footed Booby plunging to fish. From the interior of the island, we upload this Galapagos Mockingbird foraging and the most interesting of today’s ones, the Short-eared Owl hunting Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrels at their breeding colony.
Genovesa island: Nazca Booby
We continue with our Galapagos Islands trip and we arrive to Genovesa, one of the most interesting islands for birding. After a long and rough night on board, we spent a day in this small island, where we could film several species, as the Nazca Booby we add today, with 10 videos showing adults, different aged nestlings and a juvenile.
Depending on the taxonomical source, this species is considered apart or as race granti belonging to the Masked Booby (Sula dactylatra). We follow Clements taxonomy, which separates it in an endemic species breeding in the Galapagos and off Mexico.
Black-eared Wheatear
Today we present the Black-eared Wheatear, one of the three Iberian ones. This migratory passerine, belonging to Turdidae or Muscicapidae depending on the taxonomical source, has two recognized subspecies. The nominal hispanica breeds in Spain and spends the wintering months mostly in Mauritania and Mali. It occupies stony slopes and foothills up to 1200 m, preferably with low vegetation and large proportion of bare ground, feeding on invertebrates, seeds and berries.
Eurasian Nuthatch building the nest
Spring has started at the Alto Tajo Natural Park, Guadalajara, Spain. Yesterday we could film this female Eurasian Nuthatch building its nest by plastering an old Great Spotted Woodpecker’s hole.
Nuthatches are cavity-nesters, using holes in trees in most of the cases. A minority of them are self-excavated, being most of the nests placed in a pre-existing natural cavity or in another species’ old nest, frequently a woodpecker’s one. As they need a smaller entrance size to minimize predation risk, most of the species do a plastering with mud, reducing the hole to their optimal diameter.
As the rest of the family members, the Eurasian Nuthatch is monogamous and territorial, laying the eggs from april to may. Females choose the final breeding hole and do the plastering, which can last from 2 to 4 weeks, rarely assisted by the male. The clutch usually consists of 5-9 eggs, incubated by female during 13-18 days. Chicks are fed by both parents and nesting period lasts from 20 to 26 days, being independent after around 10 days. Juveniles carry out short dispersive movements, establishing their territory not far from where they were hatched.
Galapagos Mockingbird and others
Today we upload several new videos, including 3 new species for Videoaves. The first one is a Galapagos endemism, one of the mimidae occurring in the islands, the Galapagos Mockingbird, with this two videos showing the general features of the bird and an individual singing. We also add to our species list the Swallow-tailed Gull, showing both adult and an immature plumages, and the Wandering Tattler, with its non-breeding plumage. Finally, we add one more video of the endemic Galapagos Flycatcher, which was already available in the guide.
With these videos we leave North Seymour island and depart to Genovesa, our next destination aboard the Archipell II.
Great and Magnificent Frigatebirds
Today we continue our visit to North Seymour island and we reach the Great and Magnificent Frigatebirds breeding colonies. We have just uploaded 10 videos showing the different plumages of these very similar species: males, females and juveniles. Also, videos showing the amazing display of these birds, when the males inflate their gular pouches.
North Seymour is a tiny island in the north of Santa Cruz, very good for birds because of the breeding colonies of the Bobbies and Frigatebirds, although it was very windy during our visit we manage to take some good shots.
Galapagos Islands (4)
We start our expedition around the different islands on board of the Archipell II catamaran, a small 8 cabin ship in company of another 12 naturalists, 9 crew members and our guide, Javier. Our first stop was in North Seymour, a small island on the north of Santa Cruz. Here we could visit our first Blue-footed Booby breeding colony, from where we add today 8 videos showing adults displaying and breeding.
Family Sulidae is composed by 10 species divided in 2 genera (3 Gannets and 7 Boobies), occurring in all continents excepting Antarctica. Only Gannets are migratory, but Boobies also carry out dispersive movements of hundreds of kilometers. All of them are strictly marine, being some species pelagic and others coastal. They feed on fish, which they capture by plunge-dives of around 10 m deep. Sulids are colonial breeders, building the nest in a small depression on the ground formed by excrements or vegetal material. They lay 2 or 3 eggs which they incubate from 41 to 45 days. According to BirdLife International, 2 species are threatened, one of them Endangered and the other one Vulnerable.
500 species!
With today’s videos from the Galapagos Islands Videoaves reaches the mark of 500 available bird species, showing 85 families from 8 countries and 3 biogeographic regions. With over 1000 videos, the guide continues growing and we continue working to show the birds of the world in high quality videos.
We hope you have enjoyed the website until today and you continue doing so, as we still have much interesting material to upload and we continue traveling to film more birds, trying to contribute to their knowledge and conservation.
We will return after Easter and continue with our audiovisual trip report to the Galapagos with many interesting surprises. Thank you all to follow us and enjoy Videoaves!
Galapagos Islands (3)
Two new species today, don’t miss the endemic Galapagos Dove and the Great Blue Heron, also with an endemic subspecies occurring in Galapagos. With these videos we almost reach the end of the days at Santa Cruz Island and and we approach the start of our trip around Galapagos, on board of the Archipell II catamaran.
Galapagos Islands (2)
Continuing with our day at Santa Cruz Island, we descend to El Garrapatero beach, where we could take some interesting aquatics, as the endemic Lava Gull and the Striated Heron, which also occurs in the Galapagos Islands with an endemic subspecies (sundevalli). Also, two very habitual species in coastal habitats, the Ruddy Turnstone and the Whimbrel.
With today’s videos we approach the goal of 500 species available in Videoaves!
