Galapagos Trip 2023 -- Day 4 -- Rabida Island (part 1)

It was only Day 4 of our grand Galapagos Adventure, but we had already seen so much.  Next up was something a bit different than what we had seen before.  We were visiting Rabida Island, the red island.

The Frog on Rabida Island's red sand beach.  La Pinta is in the distance.

It is a long trip around the northern edge of Isabela Island to Rabida Island from the location of Day 3's afternoon adventure at Tagus Cove.  The ship left Tagus Cove about 9 pm.  It was in the vicinity of the equator about midnight, but did not make it to Rabida Island until about 6:30 the following morning.

The gps track for Day 3 is yellow.  The gps track for at least the first part of Day 4 is blue

Rabida Island.  Rabida Island  is a very small uninhabited island, less than 2 square miles, located about 3 miles south of Santiago Island.  Most of the island is inaccessible from the ocean due to vertical rock walls except for a beach on the northeast side.

The plan for the early morning adventure  was to hike the approximately 1 mile loop trail on the small peninsula on the northeast corner of the island.

North edge of Rabida Island.  La Pinta's anchorage location is the squiggle of lines in the upper left hand corner.  The more southerly land track is the gps track for our early morning hike.  The point along that track on the ridge marked by a brown chest and labeled GCCF97 is the geocache.  The more northerly water track is the gps track for our panga and glass bottom boat adventure later in the morning, the subject of the next post.

Rabida Island's Red Beach.  The wet landing on the beach was much more like what I had expected wet landings to be like.  There were minimal waves rolling onto a gently sloping sandy beach. 

The color of the beach and indeed the color of all of the soil on the island was incredible.  Even though I knew this was the "red island", I was surprised by how really red everything was. The color is due to the very high content of iron in the soil which has oxidized, i.e. rusted, to make this color.

The guides had described the trail as a very easy, so we decided to try hiking in our Keen sandals rather than switching to hiking boots.  Most of the trail was in fact wide and flat.  However, there is a 95 foot elevation gain (at least according to AllTrails) between the beach and a flat trail on top of the ridge.  The guides had failed to mention the boulders we had to climb up and down between the two levels, but we made it.

We landed at the far east edge of the beach and walked west.  We did not see any of the sea lions that supposedly live here.  I suspect they may have been further to the west around the edge of a large hill.  We did see some ghost crabs.  They were only above the sand for a brief moment before darting back into their hole.

Painted Ghost Crab

We also saw what looked like turtle tracks, probably a female going down towards the water overnight to lay her eggs, but no actual turtles.

Turtle tracks?

Saltwater Lagoon.  We eventually came to a trail through the very thick shrubs that lined the back of the beach and headed inland.  Once through the shrubs, we were suddenly in a large opening with what turned out to be a saltwater lagoon surrounded on the backside by a grove of mangroves.

View of the beach and west end of the lagoon from the top of the ridge.  Note the heavy growth of shrubs between the beach and the lagoon area.  Gwen, Paul, and James's group (I think) is near the lagoon looking at some flamingos that are at the west end of the lagoon.

The area in and around the lagoon was teeming with activity from multiple types of birds.

Flamingos.  Most notable were what I would call pink flamingos but are more correctly American Flamingos, the same flamingos found in the Caribbean.  There were several groups wading through the shallow lagoon and feeding.

Flamingos feeding in the saltwater lagoon

 

More flamingos

They have the unusual way of feeding with their head upside down.  They rapidly pump water with their  tongue through fine keratin blades that act as a strainer to filter out  small invertebrates and algae.

We were very happy to see the flamingos  since they are not always here.  They tend to fly between the islands depending upon the amount of food at various sites. 

I also saw one bird on the far bank that looked like it might be sitting on a nest.  

Flamingos on the far side of the lagoon with one possibly on a nest?

However I am not sure about the nest, since the book Galapagos Big 15, put together and given to us by Metropolitan Touring, said the following about flamingos on page 22:

Nesting behavior was observed on Rabida Island until 1997 but stopped after heavy El Nino rains altered the lagoon.

It is possible these birds hadn't gotten the memo and the info in the book is outdated since multiple sources online indicate flamingos don't even visit this lagoon on Rabida any longer.

Misc other birds.  We also saw a variety of other birds including a White-cheeked Pintail

White-cheeked Pintail

and an American Oystercatcher

American Oystercatcher

We even saw several Galapagos Doves hiding in the mangroves, but we got much better pictures later on the hike.

Feisty mockingbirds.  The most notable small birds were the mockingbirds.  They seemed to be everywhere.  They looked similar enough to the ones we have in Texas that they were readily recognizable, but there is something about the markings on their face that make them look angry to me.  I also never heard them make any sound, unlike noisy Texas mockingbirds.  These were Galapagos Mockingbirds, one of four endemic mockingbird species in Galapagos.

Galapagos Mockingbird with some kind of worm

Every one of the books I have about Galapagos wildlife talks about how territorial these guys are.  Led by an alpha male, they tend to form groups of adults and grown offspring that will threaten and even openly fight other birds that invade their territory.

I did not know about any of this at the time, but I did see several that were clearly having some type of dispute.  The Frog got a couple of pictures of what appeared to be one individual in the foreground holding up his tail in what one source referred to as part of the flick fighting posture.

 

Bird in the foreground seems to enter the scene, and the one in front of the stick is not happy about it.

 

The bird in the back ducks down,while the two birds in the center look like they might square off.

I tried to get a video of the event.  There had been some flapping of wingst, but I only caught about one second of the end of the altercation.  Below is that video slowed to half speed so I could see what happened.  

Rather than the two in the front fighting, the one in the back suddenly took off and the "intruder" followed.  I don't begin to understand what happened, but it appears the mockingbird left standing doesn't understand either.  Based on the pictures on this webpage it could have been an all out battle.

 One thing is for sure, these birds were definitely not afraid of people. 

Not sure whether this one was curious or trying to defend his territory, but he was not afraid of any of us.

On with the hike.  It was fun watching all of this at the lagoon, but there was more to see up ahead so off we went.

Starting down the trail with the first of many prickly pear.  The ridge where we would eventually hike on top is straight ahead.

Lots of Prickly Pear.  There was lots of green on the island, consistent with this being near the end of the rainy season. However, it was still clear this is a very arid region.  We immediately began encountering prickly pear cactus.  

Being from Texas, we have certainly seen prickly pear cactus before, but prickly pear in Galapagos are noticeably different.  There are over 200 species of prickly pear cacti (genus Opuntia).  Six of the species (with 14 different varieties), only grow in Galapagos.  

I am not a biologist, so I am confused about some sources referring to the prickly pears in Galapagos as separate species while other sources seem to suggest that some of those species are now considered only variants within a species.  

Whatever the taxonomy works out to be, it is definitely true that any particular type of prickly pear growing in Galapagos tends to be located only on a small subset of the islands.  For example, Opuntia galapageia var. zacana was the type we saw on North Seymour on Day 1   

Opuntia galapageia var. profusa is the type of prickly pear on Rabida.  Depending on the source it is thought to be only on Rabida or possibly also on Isabela and Santiago.  It tends to be shrubby with soft waxy spines and, as we noticed while hiking, can produce an extraordinary number of fruits (up to 82!)  on each pad.

 

Compared to Texas prickly pear, all of the fruits on a single pad look really strange

The cacti grow this way, at least according to one theory, because there have never been populations of tortoises or land iguanas on Rabida to feed on them.

More critters.  We encountered a lot of different birds, including both a small ground finch and our first common cactus finch. 

 

Small ground finch in a palo santo (incense) tree.

 

Common cactus finch

There are no land iguanas here, but we did see several lava lizards, in this case our first Santiago Lava Lizards.  These are a different species of lava lizard than what we had seen elsewhere (Isabela Lava Lizard and Santa Cruz Lava Lizard).  I am so glad I have iNaturalist to help me sort all of this out.

 

Santiago Lava Lizard

Once on top of the ridge, there were great views looking back along the east side of the peninsula.

Looking south on the east side of the peninsula

 

Closer look of the landslide in the distance. More prickly pear in the foreground, with lots of palo santo trees on the hillside.  Interesting that that the rocks near the water in the foreground are black, not red.

 

Galapagos Doves  As usual we were at the back of the pack taking pictures.  As we hurried to catch up we came to a traffic jam with everyone looking at the cactus.  What were they looking at?

Traffic jam of two different groups around the cactus

A Galapagos Dove was sitting on a nest in the center of the cactus.

Galapagos Dove on a nest in the crook of the arms of the cactus

Galapagos Doves clearly look like their Texas cousins, but are much more colorful.  This is the one species of dove that exists throughout Galapagos, but they are common only on islands where introduced cats are absent.

Galapagos Dove

Galapagos Hawk.   After taking pictures of the dove on the nest I was again behind most of the group.  They had found something else of interest.  What did they see?

Our guide pointing something out on the rocks above

OK, I see it

There was a Galapagos hawk posing for us on a rock just above our heads.  It still amazes me how all of these various animals have no concern about a crowd of people nearby.

Galapagos Hawks are the top terrestrial predator in Galapagos, living in a range of environments and eating a variety of small birds, lizards, snakes, insects, etc.

Galapagos Hawk watching us from the rocks just above our head.

Interestingly, at least to me, their ancestors were likely the Swainson's Hawk of North America.  We often see large numbers of Swainson's Hawks twice a year at LLELA as they migrate between South America and the western U.S. and/or Canada.

 

Range of Swainson's Hawks. Orange is breeding, yellow is migration, blue is nonbreeding.  Clearly some of Texas east of the orange area should be yellow.  (All About Birds)

Lots more prickly pear.  The trail back along the top of the ridge took us through an incredible number of huge prickly pearcacti.

I even found the prickly pear that I think I was supposed to find for the virtual geocache.

Hope this was the right cactus, though I am not sure.

The cache owner is a biologist.  The goal was to create a photo record of a particular cactus plant as a function of time.  The cache owner first photographed it when creating the cache is 2002.  I thought I had the correct cactus based on multiple recent pics, but now I am not sure based on the log after mine.  Oh well.

Back to the ship.  This hike had been fun, but it was now time to return to the ship and get ready for our next adventure,a panga and glass bottom boat excursion.

One more look at La Pinta before making our way down off the ridge