Isla Isabela, the Galapagos of the Sea of Cortez - by Adam

Today I am blogging about our visit to the island of Isla Isabela (Also called Isla Maria Isabelita) in the Sea of Cortez.

The island was put aside for researchers to study the birds called frigates and also blue footed boobies that nest there. Now the facility is abandoned and there is only a fishing village. 

The birds called frigates are majestic black birds with red pouches on the males’ necks to attract females by inflating it and hitting it with their beaks. The females have white feathers on their necks and the chicks are white once they get feathers. 

 

Frigates have a wingspan of 7.5 feet and only weigh 3 pounds! Can you believe that? It’s like stretching out my dad, yet he only weighs 3 lbs! Believe me, my dad is as tall as a pro basketball player! 

The birds were so calm we were in touching distance of their nests and chicks.

Now, the other bird I mentioned, the blue footed boobie, is another rare bird on the island that has, as the name suggests, blue feet. On the island is another bird called the brown boobie with green feet, only it is more common. The boobies have nests on the top of the island, only they live on the ground? Why don’t they live in the trees like frigates? I guess no one will know…

Before telling my story, I need to tell you about the last two types of creatures there are on the island, iguanas and lizards. The reptiles were every color of the rainbow, from white to black and small to large. The reptiles were not eating the lettuce we gave them and there were not any bugs on the island so we wonder what they eat and if they eat.

The animals would not even budge when we got near because they have no predators on the island and they have all they need. The island is called the "Galapagos of the Sea of Cortez" because of it.

Now I will describe our hike through the avocado forest and up the boobie hill. On the way over on the dinghy we saw some splashes in the water so we stopped. Then, we saw a huge, whale breach in the bay. 

Soon, after seeing one more breach we made it on land where we found sea-glass and weirdly colored barnacle shells. We asked a fisherman, who was going to the showers, where the trail started.  We immediately found out he could not speak English (and we don't understand Spanish), so we followed him to the research facility when he went into a ruined room to shower.

We had a book on the island and it was only a year old that said the place was used by researchers, but the place looked like it had been abandoned 20 years ago. After wandering for 30 minutes looking for the trail we found one that was not a dead end and followed it up the hill through the eye-level trees that the frigates nest in. At the top we stood up and whoa! All of a sudden we see a tornado of birds circling around us in a flurry of brown, white, blue and green. These were the boobies that live here. They did have blue feet for the blue footed boobies and green feet for brown boobies. They seemed uneasy so we tried to find the trail leading onward.


We hiked back down after we found that the trail was lined with nests and we didn't want to disturb the birds.  

  

On the way back we went to some volcanic tide pools with cool crabs.

My dad went to the other side of the bay to check out the islands caldera, it was full of water and very green!

After that we got back into the dinghy and went home. We spent the afternoon snorkeling around the caldera and saw several cool fish and even an Eagle Ray!

The next day we left saying goodbye to the birds. We think that a nesting pair might have made a nest on the Antipodes because two frigates followed the boat really far out. I still miss the Isla Isabella and its rare animals. I also miss everyone, San Diego and sometimes even the food! Bye!

You can see more details of the island on this web site:

http://10000birds.com/isla-isabel-mexicos-galapagos.htm