Day 14, our final full day, and it turned out to be one of my favorites! First up would be Santa Fe, where we’d walk through a cactus forest and see land iguanas up close. Then South Plaza, which had great birds, more iguanas and some rare sunlight.
We had an intentionally late start – 630 breakfast – since with overcast skies there was little point in landing at 6 am. We all appreciate the extra sleep. At the beach, there was a female sea lion and her pup, which I of course ignored… then we wandered through the cactus forest, along the very small loop at the top (Loop 1), which was very neat. These are fairly large cacti, as you can see below:
We saw quite a bit of variability in cactus height throughout the trip, which seemed related to whether the primary ‘predator’ was land iguanas, tortoises, or neither.
We hung out for a while on this spot above, overlooking the ocean, with a couple of iguanas and a sea lion. I had the chance (finally!) to get a wide angle close up of an iguana. This involved laying down about 2-3 feet in front of the iguana and putting the camera on the ground. The sun unfortunately decided to disappear right as I was doing this, so the colors became a bit muted while simultaneously looking over-saturated if I dial up the contrast too much – it gives them a yellowish hue, almost like the white balance is off. There was another photographer behind me and I felt a bit rushed (I should have been more patient and taken another minute or two and reposition more to the right to get the head closer to me. It would be better compositionally if head and shoulders was foreground, not its back leg). So they are what they are, but I bet if I spent a little more time in Lightroom I could get them closer to what I’d like them to be.
At other times, I caught this same iguana sunlit, for some nice portraits
A very nice photography model!
Back at the beach a young sea lion was coming ashore, and being curious, so I tried to recreate the inquisitive magic from Day 12.
At lunchtime one of our fellow tourists noticed a pod of dolphins off the boat, and we all rushed out to take a look. I debated in my head whether to be happy taking video with my iPhone and enjoying the moment, or risk missing them as I went back to my room to grab my camera. I eventually ran up, and snagged some shots. It had been many, many years since I’ve had the opportunity to photograph dolphins. My last time was probably back with my dad, off the coast of Southern California, in my early 20s. That would have been with a manual Nikon FM3 with no motor-drive, and Kodachrome 64 slide film. Back in those days, you’d have to prefocus on a spot, above the water, then click just before you thought the dolphin was coming up – otherwise you’d get a lot of head-in-the-water but tail-in-the air shots. It’s much, MUCH, easier with these days with autofocus and bursts, although I was a bit rusty (that just means I need to get out on the water this summer…).
Our last major land excursion was on South Plaza island. It’s a small island (sorry the map picture is blurry), with a loop. The bottom of the island is up along a high cliff, and here we were able to watch tropic birds fly back and forth. Tough shots to get them in flight – incredibly fast, and my autofocus had some difficulty locking on. While I did get a couple of shots of them in-flight as they sailed by, the ones with the tropic coming in for a landing midway up the cliff are my favorite.
This was also a fun shot, of a gull floating above my head, scratching it’s head. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a soaring bird take time to preen, but I guess if you have an itch, you’d best scratch it.
A real highlight of the island – and really, of the trip – were the land iguanas. This particular island had seen the cacti decimated by mice, which were eventually eradicated in 2012. They are attempting to reestablish the cacti, and young plants were planted over a large part of the island, protected from the iguanas by metal cages. The island was very dry, and we found a couple of hungry land iguanas in two places desperate for some juicy bites. They’d nibble on old cactus flowers, and with the setting sun, it made for some nice “action” shots – making sure to keep that eye in focus. Always point your focus point on the eye!
And of course I HAD to get my trademarked shot from the back/side, focused on the eye, with a nice blurred background.
The last few pictures of the day I’m particularly happy with. In both cases a few of us were on the shadowed side of the cactus as the cactus finch and the yellow warbler hopped around. I took a chance and went to the sunlit side, in the hope that they’d eventually make their way to that side – and they did! I had these sunlit cuties all to myself. The beak differences here are really striking.
And with that, we boarded the panga for our last evening in the islands. A very successful last full day on the islands – full breadth of animals, lots of action, different types of photography, from wide-angle landscape to close-up portraits. Great day to end on.
A couple additional random shots from the day below. Click here for SmugMug, or go back to Day 13, or forward to Day 15.
