Songs and Observations in the Field

Jeff and Luis only had a few days before they left, so we went to El Garrapatero to do some more feeding observations and try and record the songs of banded birds. We were successful on both counts, and even had the chance to observe a woodpecker finch!

After Jeff and Luis left, I had the pleasure of accompanying the University of Utah crew to the field to finish up some data collection. We had a successful data collection day, and even squeezed in a quick swim at the beach.

We had 13 hours of heavy rain two days ago, and several hours last night, so this will hopefully be enough to jump start breeding in the birds. I'll be heading back into the field later this week and next week, so hopefully El Garrapatero will be hopping (literally) with activity!

Adios Team Fuli Forti-fied!

Once again, we bid a sad farewell to another Earthwatch group of volunteers: Team Fuli Forti-fied. We hope they had as much fun as we did and enjoyed their experience with them!

 Thus concludes our Earthwatch season for this year! We had a successful banding seasons where we banded or recaptured over 200 birds thanks to the hard work of our volunteers. Now it's back to the land of reality where we will be crunching data.

Muchos gracias to all our volunteers and to Earthwatch for allowing us to work with them! I'll be around a bit longer, so this blog will continue this year for a little bit longer...

Earthwatch Day 9: Team Fuli Forti-fied El Garrapatero

Our last day in the field was at El Garrapatero. The finches seemed to recognize this was the team's last day and were very cooperative in the poses they struck for us.

Like yesterday, there was a Great Blue Heron and Great Egret hanging around El Garrapatero beach. Today, with lots of luck, I was able to witness the Great Blue capture a fish. I do not have a proper fish book for identification, but it was fairly large and the heron had no problem gulping it down.

And in case you wanted a step-by-step in how to catch and eat a fish...

The Great Egret also was hunting, but while I was watching, did not manage to catch anything...

Earthwatch Day 8: Team Fuli Forti-fied El Garrapatero

And it was off to the field again today! We've been so busy, I haven't had as much time to take pictures except to ID birds! However, at El Garrapatero, there were two Flaminos in the lagoon (no photos), and a Great Blue Heron posing for us as well...

A mockingbird seemed poised and ready to go after some tasty morsel...

The crew is still smiling after an intense day in the field!

Earthwatch Day 7: Team Fuli Forti-fied El Garrapatero

Yesterday, the team had a day off, and many of them went to South Plaza Island where they got to see and snorkel with all sorts of iconic Galápagos organisms. Others went to Tortuga Beach or Floreana, and they all had amazing adventures! Today, the team announced their team name: Fuli Forti-fied! This was a long discussion with many names being suggested, but the team all agreed this one represented them best.

It was back to work today with a full morning in the field at El Garrapatero. As always, the terrain offers wonderful scenery for the sunrise. I'm not a morning person, so the early mornings are difficult, but when you get to enjoy spectacular scenery like this on an almost daily basis... I have to pinch myself this is reality!

We had a good morning, but enough down time to snap some photos of the crew...

Earthwatch Team ??: Day 5 El Garrapatero

Today our team of volunteers headed to El Garrapatero for the first time. It is still very dry as can be seen by the lack of green at our site. Hopefully, there will be some rain soon and we will catch even more birds!

At El Garrapatero, I found some tribulus plants. They produce seeds that are very pointy and relatively hard to crack, so only larger beaked birds can crack them. You can often find the remnants of the seed casings on the ground.

Tribulus flower

Tribulus seed before getting eaten

Tribulus seed(s) after getting eaten

Earthwatch Team ??: Day 4 Around Town

Today I was with the observation crew and we did observations around town. We found an several areas off the main tourist drags where there was plenty of data to collect.

While one team was doing observations, I took some photos of the. It seems they also wanted to take photos of me!

We've been very busy getting into the swing of things with our field work, but we head to El Garrapatero tomorrow and it should be exciting!