Our first stop on Tuesday the 26th was a beach on the north shore of Santa Cruz island. We started on this beach, and then walked to Las Bachas. On the way, we saw much wildlife, including our friend El Canario María:
Yellow Warbler
We saw our first of many Lava Lizards:
Lava Lizard
Lava Lizard
Lava Lizard
Lava Lizard
And the ever-present Sally Lightfoot Crab and Frigatebird:
Sally Lightfoot Crab
Frigatebird
Las Bachas beach is named after "las bachas" - remains of barges abandoned by the US at the end of WWII that floated to the beach and have remained there rusting ever since:
Group at Las Bachas
Las Bachas
On the way back, we stopped by a salt lake where flamingos can be found (we did not find one). However, we did find other things, including a Marine Iguana bathing:
Marine Iguana
Various shorebirds were in and around the lake:
Black-necked Stilts
Black-necked Stilt
Sanderling and Plover
Sanderling taking wing
Plover and Sanderling
Whimbrel
We returned to the original beach, where many of our party went snorkeling. Jill and I, however, stayed on shore to watch birds and other wildlife. We were rewarded! Many Sally Lightfoot crabs:
Sally Lightfoot Crab
Sally Lightfoot Crab
A nice little Lava Heron (I think):
Lava Heron
Lava Heron
Lava Heron
Several Brown Pelicans floating through:
Brown Pelican
Brown Pelican
Brown Pelican
Brown Pelican
A Great Blue Heron coming in for the evening:
Great Blue Heron
Great Blue Heron
More Yellow Warblers and finches:
Yellow Warbler
Darwin Finch
Our first Galápagos Flycatcher (we would see more on a subsequent island):
Galápagos Flycatcher
Another Whimbrel:
Whimbrel
More Galápagos Plovers:
Galápagos Plover
Galápagos Plover
A Wandering Tattler:
Wandering Tattler
Wandering Tattler
Marine Iguanas:
Marine Iguana
And, of course, the elusive Bare-footed Jilly Bird:
Jill
Once everyone else was done snorkeling, we returned to the ship:
MV Origin
We got underway while we lunched:
Before we disembarked, I watched our hard-working crew unload a Panga. Much activity like this went on behind the scenes and we were not generally aware of it as passengers. This is sped up 6x.
Our destination for the afternoon was Cerro Dragón, "Dragon Hill", named because it looks somewhat like the head of a Land Iguana from some angles. Here it is from the beach:
Cerro Dragon
On the beach and the early part of our hike we found more of our friends the Marine Iguanas:
Marine Iguana
Marine Iguana
Marine Iguana
There were Boobys diving for food:
I found bumblebees in the foliage:
Bumblebee
And we found more Sanderlings:
Sanderling
As well as our sentinel, the Mockingbird:
Galápagos Mockingbird
It was a warm day, and the hike was through desert terrain. Always bring water and wear sun protection!
Hiking at Cerro Dragón
We were on the hunt for Land Iguanas. We found evidence of their existence, including tracks and a bone:
Land Iguana tracks (with people tracks)
Iguana Vertebra
And then we found what we were looking for - a nice big Land Iguana. Very different from the Iguanas seen on the mainland:
Land Iguana
Land Iguana
Land Iguana
Land Iguana
Land Iguana
Land Iguana
We saw five or six land iguanas that day.
We made it to the top of the hill and I stopped to take a panorama:
I got two GoPro Hero3 Black cameras and am planning a panoramic project with them. However, to do the project correctly and accurately, I need a good read on their field-of-view. So, I set up a tripod and a grid and a tape measure, and took a few photos. Here they are, desaturated and contrast-enhanced, with central red dots and some annotations. First, measuring the diagonal FOV: Next, the horizontal FOV: Finally, the vertical FOV: The front of the camera lens was almost exactly 17 inches from the grid. The camera body started about 17.25 inches from the grid. Assuming the sensor is embedded some distance into the body, I used an estimated field-to-sensor distance of 17.5 inches. This yields the following field-of-view, in degrees: Diagonal: 146 Horizontal: 121 Vertical: 93 Doing a little interval math on the field-to-sensor distance shows these angles are accurate to about plus or minus 1.5 degrees. Int...
A few years ago, I converted various planet maps to icosahedral models . You can print these out, cut along the solid lines, fold along the dotted lines, and have a nice icosahedron to play with. Since then, two more robot spacecraft have created global maps of planetary bodies. Most recently, the New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto. Here is an icosahedral projection of the data we have so far: Also fairly recently, the Dawn spacecraft has orbited both Vesta and Ceres, two of the largest asteroids (or "dwarf planets" as the new nomenclature has it) in the Solar System. Here are icosahedral projections of those two. First, Vesta: Next, Ceres - note the mysterious white spots toward the upper right: All of the data used to create these projections was taken from Steve Albers' Planetary Maps Page , which I highly recommend. Edit: A PDF file of helpful hints on assembling these can be found here .
Like millions of other people, we went chasing the Great American Eclipse. We chose Nebraska, since everybody we knew was going to Wyoming, and the climate models suggested a good probability of clear weather. Our initial camp was at Lake McConaughy, which is just inside the line of totality. My sister Danielle and her husband Edward got there early to start scouting. Our plan was to check weather forecasts and then go mobile the day of the eclipse. The morning of August 19 I got up early and snapped this shot of the moon on its way to its date with destiny: Sunday morning we checked the forecasts. It was not looking good for Nebraska in general, but east-central Nebraska seemed better than western according to the forecasts. So we packed up camp and headed out to Camp Augustine, a Boy Scout camp near Grand Island, Nebraska: They had camping spots available, and a large field which would be good for observations. After a rather hot, muggy, sleepless night (dry camping wi...
Comments