Galápagos day 3 - Española

Española is the most southerly and one of the oldest islands in the Galápagos. Almost the entire world population of waved albatrosses breed here, but February is the only month when you're guaranteed not to see any there, as they're all out at sea eating like crazy before coming back to breed again. Below is a picture of a breeding ground, with an unhatched egg handily just on the right side of the stop sign for tour guides to pick up. We also saw a pair of bat rays mating in the shallow water by the beach as we landed. They ignored us and carried on for a while, before swimming off. 

The marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) is endemic to the Galápagos. They dive to eat red and green algae off rocks. The one in the left-hand picture below seemed to have eaten something that it didn't agree with, and vomited up that reddish puddle in front of us. Española also has its own endemic species of lava lizard, Microlophus delanonis.

Nazca boobies nest in open areas, and seem completely oblivious to humans wandering around them. We saw a hawk circling around, though, and the flock were clearly signalling danger to each other. It came close to picking off a young booby on one pass, but didn't manage to make contact.