{"id":9811,"date":"2014-01-06T22:54:39","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T03:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/?p=9811"},"modified":"2014-01-06T22:54:39","modified_gmt":"2014-01-07T03:54:39","slug":"north-seymour-island-galapagos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/2014\/01\/06\/north-seymour-island-galapagos\/","title":{"rendered":"North Seymour Island, Gal\u00e1pagos"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Frigate<\/a>
\n(December 7) Frigate birds swoop around the boat as it travels between the islands.
\n\"Frigate<\/a>
\nNorth Seymour is a small flat island with lots of wildlife.
\n\"Blue<\/a>
\nA blue footed booby.
\n
\n\"Sea<\/a>
\n\"Land<\/a>
\nLand iguanas are not native to the island. They were brought here in the 1930s from the nearby island of Baltra.
\n\"Cacti\"<\/a>
\nSince North Seymour Island had never had any giant tortoises or land iguanas the local cactus species grow close to the ground. As a result the introduced land iguanas prospered, becoming big and fat.
\n\"Land<\/a>
\nThis turned out to be a good thing because in the 1940s the United States leased Baltra Island to build an airbase to defend the Panama Canal from a possible Japanese attack. In the process all the land iguanas on Baltra were wiped out.<\/p>\n

Eventually scientists from the Charles Darwin Research Station were able to take land iguanas from North Seymour Island and reintroduce them to Baltra.
\n\"Land<\/a>
\n\"Lava<\/a>
\nOf course no island in the Gal\u00e1pagos would be complete without lava lizards.
\n\"Nesting<\/a>
\nThe flat center of the island with its scrubby vegetation provides a fine nesting ground for frigate birds.
\n\"Frigate<\/a>
\nIn two species of frigate bird, the “great” and the “magnificent,” the males have an inflatable pouch that they use for mating displays.
\n\"Frigate<\/a>
\nA male who has not found a mate will sit on the nesting grounds. When a female flies over he will spread his wings and puff up his chest, trying to look as impressive as possible.
\n\"Frigate<\/a>
\nIf the female likes his looks she will land. If they hit it off they will cross their beaks. Then the male will fly off and steal something as a present for the female. This proves that he is a good stealer and can help provide for the chicks.
\n\"Frigate<\/a>
\nFrigate bird chicks are born mostly white and gradually develop the black feathers.
\n\"Frigate<\/a>
\nThe parents take care of the chicks for about a year and a half, until they are big enough to steal for themselves.
\n\"Frigate<\/a>
\n\"Booby<\/a>
\nBlue footed boobies also nest here.
\n\"Booby<\/a>
\nIt’s not an ideal situation for them. The boobies typically lay 4 eggs and the frigate birds get 3 of them.
\n\"Booby<\/a>
\nA booby feeds its chick, regurgitating food into its beak.
\n\"Booby<\/a>
\n\"Booby<\/a>
\nIf the parent flies away too soon the frigate birds will grab the booby chick and shake it until it disgorges its meal.
\n\"Red<\/a>
\nA red footed booby.
\n\"Red<\/a>
\n\"Sea<\/a><\/p>\n

All posts from this trip.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(December 7) Frigate birds swoop around the boat as it travels between the islands. North Seymour is a small flat island with lots of wildlife. A blue footed booby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[174,593],"tags":[595,594],"class_list":["post-9811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photos","category-travel","tag-2013-trip","tag-galapagos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9811"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9856,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9811\/revisions\/9856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}