Ambience — the character of a place — is the theme of this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge. Here Mrs. Kongo and fellow passenger Greg share the ambience of sunrise in the Galapagos Islands. See more interpretations of ambience at the Photo Challenge site on WordPress. Advertisements
This week’s Photo Challenge at WordPress is Chaos. Here hundreds of blue-footed boobies and pelicans attack a bait ball in the Galapagos Islands. There birds were diving constantly, splashing, screeching, and gorging. Pelicans got so full of fish they were unable to take off again. See more depictions of CHAOS at the WordPress challenge site. Travel safe. Have fun.
There’s a tradition on the Galapagos Islands about mail delivery. Hundreds of years ago someone from a whaling ship set up a barrel in a place now called Post Office Bay to act as a mailbox. Ships could drop mail off there with the hope that some other passing ship heading home would pick up their correspondence and deliver it. Ships inbound to the islands would drop off mail destined for crews that were still in the islands. It was a good system that worked well. It still works!
The Swallow-tailed Gull found on the Galapagos Islands is truly an interesting bird. Aside from their red eyes and hooked beak, these birds are the only true seabird that is nocturnal. The red eye rim indicates the bird is in breeding season, which at the Galapagos Islands is pretty much year round. Another interesting thing about these gulls is that their eyes are larger than any other species of gull. This is to give them better night vision when hunting squid and small fish that come to the surface at night to feed on plankton.
Brown pelicans were frequent visitors to the Celebrity Xpedition during Kongo’s visit to the Galapagos Islands last week. The amazing birds are graceful in flight and have an uncanny ability to skim just inches above the waves while searching for food. The have keen eyes and always turn up when there are fish around.
Sally Lightfoot crabs are all over the Galapagos islands. These amazingly beautiful creatures play an important role in keeping the Galapagos clean as they eat pretty much anything that dies and washes ashore. They also feed on algae.
