What stirred these thoughts in Brian’s mind was the clear blue sky above and the clear turquoise sea all about – and the Beluga’s situation in a beautiful sheltered bay, with, for company, just one other Beluga-sized boat. It really was as though the captain had found his way to Nirvana – and Nirvana wasn’t even crowded. In fact, it was pretty well deserted as well as being stunningly gorgeous.
Well, there was only one thing to do. And this was to go downstairs and wait for breakfast – and when breakfast arrived, to contemplate how many pounds would be added to one’s frame if this really was the smallest of the three full meals to be served each day. Nevertheless, those thoughts were transitory and were soon overtaken by the anticipation of what would be the Nature-seekers’ first ‘wet landing’. As promised in Darwin’s final briefing of the previous evening, the pangas would soon be loaded with their complements of ‘wet virgins’ and they would then make their way to a white sandy beach at the end of the enclosed bay and there deposit their loads – in the foam.
This wasn’t as bad as it sounds. When the pangas were close to the beach, by using their outboard motors, the panga drivers were able to hold them in position – their fronts nearest the sand – and the virgins could disembark. And all this entailed was one pair of virgins at a time – on either side of a panga and starting with those nearest the front – swinging their legs over the panga’s inflated sides and then standing up in the surf – preferably barefoot. Oh, and then not falling over, not dropping their rucksacks or their cameras, and remembering that they then had to wade to the shore.
Observing what proved to be an entirely successful landing by all the Nature-seekers was a Galápagos hawk. He – and, from his colouring and size, it was a he – was perched on a rock well above the bay, and was no doubt confirming the fact that this island was one of the few remaining hotspots for this rarest of rare birds. Because, whilst this brownish-black raptor does occur on other islands, its habit of snacking on anything it can find – including domestic chickens – has guaranteed its persecution and consequently its preference for uninhabited islands such as Santa Fe.
Throughout the Galápagos archipelago, there are only 400 to 800 individual hawks (depending on what reference work one chooses), and within this tiny number there are probably no more than 150 breeding pairs. This means that there are only 150 breeding pairs in the whole world, and this, of course, earns this bird the classification of ‘vulnerable’. It is just as well, then, that the females of the species have developed a very successful breeding strategy, one that is guaranteed to optimise their chances of producing a new crop of hawks. This strategy is called cooperative polyandry – and it does exactly what it says on the tin. That is to say that one female Galápagos hawk will have it off with up to seven male hawks, and these males will then help out with the subsequent incubation work and even with the rearing of the young. It’s a great idea, and it certainly helps the survival of the Galápagos hawk as a species. However, Brian doubted that it would ever catch on in the human world. After all, whilst many men would no doubt buy into the first part of the deal, they would probably all baulk at its associated service commitments. And, furthermore, there is very little doubt that most women would find it very difficult to believe that there were as many as seven suitable and worthy males in the whole bloody world.
Anyway, this Galápagos hawk on the rock was a welcome sight, and what would really constitute icing on the cake would be its now landing on a Nature-seeker head. Unlikely, but not impossible. Because these birds, as well as being largely fearless of man, are irrepressibly inquisitive, and they have actually been known to land on people’s heads. In fact, even Darwin (the nineteenth-century dead one) remarked on their audacious behaviour, when he wrote ‘A gun here is almost superfluous; for with the muzzle I pushed a hawk out of the branch of a tree…’
Well, this one didn’t even approach the Nature-seekers, but instead he flew off inland (no doubt looking for something tasty – in any sense of the word) and Brian and his fellow shipmates were left to turn their attention to the other very obvious occupants of the beach: a score of basking sea lions.
They were, inevitably, Galápagos sea lions, of which there is a fluctuating population of between twenty and fifty-thousand, often being towards the low end of that range as the result of the effects of El Niño (on their food source). This morning, on this beach, it has to be said that none of the lolling lions looked as though they’d ever given a second’s thought to the effects of El Niño, probably because they never had, and possibly because thinking and worrying weren’t high on their agenda. What was clearly more important was their lolling about, their caring for their pups (they were all females), and their exercising of their thigmotactic behaviour. Yes, Brian had learned a new word, thigmotactic, which simply means the seeking of body contact with others, and which, for sea lions, manifests itself in their desire to loaf around in piles – and which, for certain humans, manifests itself in a way that can easily result in their being arrested and then charged with indecent behaviour.
They were delightful – the sea lions, that is – and the pups were especially charming, albeit a little directionless as they flopped around the beach. They were all, as advertised, entirely unbothered by their new human companions, whom they must have regarded as neither a threat nor an object of interest. Brian liked to think it was more the latter. Anything that reminded humans that they were of intense interest only to themselves was a ‘good thing’ in his book, and this wasn’t the first time he’d thought this. He’d encountered too many other animals who displayed this same indifference to the presence of Homo sapiens, not least a number of resting lion-lions, who all appeared to have as much interest in all those ubiquitous people as they did in the size of Uranus.
Anyway, Brian had now been distracted from his observations of the sea lions – and their insouciance – not by Darwin’s current beach lecture, but by a gang of mockingbirds. They were just a few feet away, having obviously had their insatiable curiosity in all things, including Nature-seekers, overcome by their uncontainable opportunism. Yes, there was clearly something to eat or to steal or to make off with, and there was a full-scale squabble going on to decide which bird would have it – if another opportunistic mockingbird hadn’t had it already. They were fascinating: a gaggle of rather scrawny-looking chancers, squawking and chattering, and seemingly achieving nothing other than the successful entertainment of a small clutch of visitors (all of whom had plainly lost the thread of their leader’s dissertation). And these birds were so engrossing that this same group of truants almost failed to notice that their leader was now on the move and, with his party of better-behaved pupils, was heading to the back of the beach. It was time to go, and time to explore more of Santa Fe’s gems.
There were quite a few, and they were all observed from a surprisingly short track that climbed gently upwards towards some coastal cliffs and then back down again to finish at the far end of the beach. To start with, there were more birds: big ones like smooth-billed anis (a bird introduced by Galápagos farmers in the 1960s in the mistaken belief that it would remove ticks from their cattle, and not constitute another threat to the established wildlife), and small ones like yellow warblers, Galápagos doves and Darwin’s finches. Brian studied them all as best he could – other than the Darwin’s finches. These, he knew, would be one or more of the fourteen species of Darwin’s finches that lived on the Galápagos, just as he knew that it would take him much longer than the two weeks he was spending on this archipelago to tell one species of finch from another. There are physical differences between the different species – reflecting the adaption of these birds to the different environments on the different islands and that had been so critical in Darwin’s understanding of natural selection – but these differences are principally in beak size and shape. Furthermore, they are so subtle that Brian would have needed a micrometer screw gauge, a protractor, a chart of bea
k illustrations and a dead finch in order to identify with any degree of confidence which dead finch he had in his hand. And if the finch was alive and in a bush, forget it – or wait for (the current) Darwin to tell you what it was. And generally Darwin would only know what it was because of the bird’s particular location. Yes, all the species of (the other) Darwin’s finches are essentially dark brown or black, and are as difficult to tell apart as most modern pop songs. Albeit they are generally more tuneful than most modern pop songs – of course…
There were lava lizards here as well (much smaller and much livelier reptiles than their iguana cousins) – and land iguanas, very similar to those seen only yesterday at Dragon Hill. They looked just as corpulent and just as unenergetic as those seen at Dragon Hill, but that didn’t stop them having a significant impact on the local vegetation and, in particular, on the local variety of opuntia. This is otherwise known as giant prickly pear cactus, and it occurs throughout the Galápagos as six different species divided into fourteen varieties. Which doesn’t sound terribly interesting until one understands that this isn’t the sort of cactus that one would grow in a pot in the conservatory, but the sort that can grow up to twelve metres tall and thereby assume the appearance of a tree. Well, it seems reasonable to suspect that it developed these lofty credentials in response to a competition for light and as a protection from predators. Principally giant tortoises. However, light is abundant in Santa Fe and there are no tortoises on the island. It therefore seems likely that here there was another nibbling predator it was seeking to avoid – and that this chap must undoubtedly have been the local land iguana. Yes, this bumbling creature, all on its own, has given rise to a small ‘forest’ of Opuntia echios var barringtonensis (named in honour of the British admiral, S. Barrington, of course), a cactus that is amongst the tallest in the archipelago and that has a massive, straight trunk, which is quite capable of preventing even the most nimble of land iguanas from eating its prickly pads. And by golly, these cacti were tall – and above that massive trunk, very prickly and certainly not conducive to the building of tree houses, even by boys with prick-proof, chrome-leather gloves. Not that there were any boys here or were ever likely to be. Instead there were just middle-aged Nature-seekers who were back on the beach – and getting another briefing from Darwin…
This one concerned the importance of avoiding cross-contamination between the various Galápagos islands, a contamination that could easily occur if a band of careless visitors were to transfer soil or sand between these islands. And as they would all be unshoeing themselves in readiness for a ‘wet boarding’ of a panga and would thereby be equipping their feet with a cargo of beach, it was vital that this cargo was ditched before their feet were within the panga. So… Darwin explained how they would all need to waggle their feet in the water when they were sitting on the side of the panga and before they’d swung their legs aboard – and how, when they arrived back on the Beluga, they would then be required to rinse both their feet and their shoes in a small tank of water that had been prepared for this purpose. Fortunately, they were not required to disrobe completely, shake out their underwear and then undergo any sort of intimate screening. Which was not just very welcome news for Brian but also a reflection of his unreasonable impatience with what were no more than entirely sensible and completely reasonable measures to protect a unique and precious environment.
In fact, as soon as he was back on board, he became aware of his unreasonable impatience – and of the imminence of yet another Darwin briefing!
This one proved to be a brief briefing and a useful briefing – in that it concerned the choice, adjustment, preparation, use and care of a snorkel. So, the seven Nature-seekers (including Brian) who had opted for some snorkelling recreation before lunch, listened intently – and then went off to the front of the boat, where the snorkelling gear was kept, and readied themselves as advised.
And then… well, wow! Because, within minutes, the snorkelling seven – with Darwin in attendance – had been taken in one of the pangas to the rocky wall of the bay, and there they had entered the water. Had they all been wearing socks, there would now have been fourteen of these floating away in the current, because without a doubt they would all have been blown off – at speed. It was simply magical: crystal-clear water, full of all sorts of colourful fish, the odd ray, a few white-tipped reef sharks and even a couple of juvenile sea lions – and a complete sense of wonder. The sea lions, in particular, were captivating; clumsy on land, but here, in the water, supple, streamlined, sinuous and sublime – and friendly. (Yes, it wasn’t until much later that Brian discovered that whilst it would be unusual to have an unfortunate encounter with a shark hereabouts, sea lion bulls can be quite aggressive and they have been known to inflict serious injuries on careless swimmers, although Brian suspected that they probably regretted it after the event and resolved never to do it again unless it was to somebody who really deserved it – like, for example, that local guy who’d condoned the killing of sharks.)
But back to that magical experience. Because it was genuinely magical and it was made even more magical towards its end when the Nature-seekers were joined by two enormous green sea turtles, which underwater were as unconcerned with the Nature-seekers as those sea lions had been on the beach. All this, thought Brian, as he dragged himself back into the panga, would be a hard act to follow. But, as he would discover, it would be followed – by a whole series of magic acts, some of which would be even more thrilling…
That, however, was for later. Right now, there was a boat to catch – before it set off for their next destination – and a daunting luncheon to eat, a meal that Brian would soon realise was in competition with the on-board evening meal to win the ‘main meal of the day’ award. It would prove to be a close-run race.
Anyway, that next destination was South Plaza, a tiny island off the east coast of Santa Cruz (and therefore almost directly north of Santa Fe), which is paired with an equally small island, cunningly named North Plaza. Both these islands are uplifted slabs of sea floor rather than volcanic remains, and they are separated by a channel that is less than one kilometre wide. When the Beluga arrived in this channel, Brian was struck not so much by the islands’ beauty as by their bareness. To him, they still looked like uplifted slabs of sea floor – which somebody had tried to embellish with the minimum of vegetation. When he then got onto South Plaza, he didn’t really change this first impression.
It was a dry landing – onto a small man-made quay. So no problems there. And, here, what presented itself to the Nature-seekers was a very flat island, no more than a kilometre long, and tilting up gently over a distance of just one hundred metres until it ended at what were apparently vertiginous cliffs. Oh, and its surface was studded with what Brian had taken to be patches of dying moss but which were, in fact, mats of something called sea purslane, interspersed, here and there, with more of those opuntia cacti seen back on Santa Fe – only not quite as tall. And that was it. Whatever managed to live on this giant paving slab in the Pacific Ocean had either a very small and very unadventurous appetite or a very empty belly. Or, for just a few, as Brian and his companions were about to find out, a very innovative way of overcoming the poorest of poor tables d’hôte.
Yes, it appears that back in 1997, high water temperatures caused by El Niño wreaked havoc on the seaweed beds around the Galápagos, and about half of all the archipelago’s marine iguanas starved to death. However, amongst the survivors were a number who either sought food on land or, better still, came to an arrangement with a few land iguanas who themselves had very little to eat – like those living on that virtually empty plate known as South Plaza. And the nature of this arrangement was the insemination by a number of male marine iguanas of a number of (much larger) female land iguanas to produce a small population of marine/land iguana hybrids!
Marine iguanas have sharp claws with which they can grip rocks underwater and so eat the seaweed. Lan
d iguanas do not. This prevents them climbing those tall cacti to feed on their flesh, and instead they have to wait for food to drop to the ground. However… the hybrids have the claws and are therefore able to exploit the cacti much more easily and still eat seaweed underwater. Essentially they can survive in both a sea and a land environment, or, put another way, they can supplement the paltry food supply on South Plaza by feeding on stuff that grows all around it. Not exactly a full à la carte solution, but it must be a darn sight better than just that crap table d’hôte.
Darwin, in his first lecture on South Plaza, had explained this fascinating phenomenon, and had gone on to point out that the marine/land hybrids were viable but that they were sterile, and consequently extremely rare. There are probably no more than a handful of them (none of which were seen). However, what he did not touch on was how a normally diffident and unassertive male marine iguana would have plucked up the courage to date a much bigger female land iguana – and what he would have chosen for his chat-up line. Brian couldn’t imagine. And then he had it – of course. It would be: ‘What’s a nice girl like you doing in a Plaza like this?’ Or, there again, maybe iguanas aren’t into chat-up lines at all, or if they are, they’d probably do a lot better than that. Even with a mouthful of seaweed.
Absolutely Galápagos Page 4