Isla Floreana:
Greater flamingos, in a lagoon near Punta Cormorant. These flamingos were busy feeding, so most of the photos had these "headless" birds in them.

A lone flamingo.

See those tiny pink dots? Those are the flamingos, as seen from above. This was taken from a high vantage point over the lagoon. You can almost trace each bird's path by following the paths left in the mud.

This green sea turtle had just finished laying her eggs and was making her way into the sea, surprisingly late in the morning for her to be doing that, our guide commented. We got to this beach shortly after a huge crowd of about 150 people from a much larger boat had gotten there, and they were lining each side of this turtle's trail, without much respect for its privacy.

A shot of the beach the turtle was on.

The post office box, in Post Office Bay. Here, you can leave postcards, letters, or anything with an address on it in the barrel, and if someone from the town it is addressed to (or close to it) finds your letter, with luck, they'll deliver it. This has been a tradition in Galapagos since the late 1700s, when British sailors left messages in a barrel placed on this beach for homecoming ships to deliver.
This is also one of the few places where you see evidence of humans. The history of the human colonization of Galapagos is full of bizarre and often almost humourously tragic figures. I can't remember the details of the first family to settle in Galapagos, but most of the main facts are on this page, under "Idealists: 1926 - present".
Note: The Wittmers' son, Rolf Wittmer, was the first person born in the Galapagos, in a lava tube on Floreana (a cave left behind from an underground lava flow), and he now owns the Tip Top line of boats, one of which we took this cruise on.

Isla Espanola:
Espanola's marine iguanas are the most colorful of the bunch. That's not lichen growing on them, that's their skin. They're red throughout most of the year, but turn a lovely blue-green during the breeding season.

American oystercatcher. A first for me, all I've seen until now were black oystercatchers.

Sea lions are very, very social animals. They lie together even if they aren't even distantly related.

More iguanas.

A male M. delanonsis lava lizard.

Galapagos hawk. The islands' only endemic raptor. The hawks both hunt and scavenge, eating dead sea lions and catching young marine iguanas. They have a call which sounds a lot like North America's red-shouldered hawk. (It was foggy when this photo was taken)

Waved albatross. The Galapagos is one of the only places where tourists can see waved albatrosses nesting. Why are they called waved albatross? Because if you get close enough, you can see a delicate, wavy pattern on the gray portion of their feathers, which is not a reliable way of identifying them at a distance. And of course, these birds are HUGE.

This pair is spending a tender moment together after doing the wild thing. It was probably the first time for the male. He climbed on top of the female and fell off one side, then climbed on again and fell off the other side. When he was doing the act, the female's plumage was so compressed that she looked like she was being squashed. Another pair wasn't so successful: when the male tried climbing on the female, she took off running, and the male slid right off.

There's just something...odd about that face...

This was part of a little domestic squabble: a male and a female were together, another male waddles up, the first male chases him off with his wings outspread, honking angrily (which this photo depicts), while the female decides she has grown bored of the affair and leaves. When the first male notices this, he starts chasing after her.

Me and my little mockingbird friend. I heard that Hood mockingbirds are the boldest of the mockingbirds. I was even told by one of our guides that if they see water bottles being carried by tourists, they'll peck at the bottles until the tourists give them some water (which isn't allowed). I decided to see just how bold these birds were, so I sat down near a couple of them, and soon this adolescent (they were the ones making the most noise, begging to be fed by their parents) came up to me, circled me, then decided to pull my shoelaces. Then there was the mockingbird that decided to land on my leg for a fraction of a second later that day...I'd say they're pretty bold, all right.

Here's another one of them, perched on a trail marker.

A blue-footed booby and its chick.

Okay, everyone together: Awwwwwwww...

This Nazca booby was employing another "cooling down" strategy. The shade from the partially spread wings keeps its feet cool, and since there are a lot of blood vessels in the feet, the cooled blood circulates through the rest of the body, keeping the entire bird cool.

This iguana hasn't lost its greenish breeding colors yet.

A young sea lion decided to have some fun with a marine iguana...to be more precise, a marine iguana's tail. However, the iguana didn't want to play and crawled off, inspiring the sea lion to give chase (you can see the tail disappearing on the left).

This young, inexperienced brown pelican stole a fish tail from a sea lion, and for some time, attempted to swallow it...

...With amusing results.

Sea lion pups, having fun.

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