Xenornis

On Saturday, August 7, Claudia & Bill Ahrens, Rosabel & Karl Kaufmann, and Delicia & Darién Montañez braved the threatening skies over Pedasí and headed out for Islas Frailes. Frailes del Sur were covered in birds: about 500 Bridled Terns , including some in juvenile plumage, maybe 200 Brown Noddies, and 100 Sooty Terns , including some 25 in juvenile plumage that would often fly over our boat. Further out, and after deploying the chum, we started running into procellariids: one or two Galápagos Shearwater , a single Sooty Shearwater and a dozen Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrels . Our persistence was rewarded when we approached a flock of noddies and ran into about 120 Galápagos Sheawaters sitting on the water, allowing for really close views. Of course, I completely forgot I had a camera on me. After this flock flew and floated away, we went out some more and found another similar flock, this time with about 80 Galápagos Shearwaters, similarly well-behaved. Our boatman estimated...

Binocular-less Delicia, Pedro, Camilo & Darién Montañez managed to i.d. the two dozen boobies fishing with the pelicans right at the surf at Punta Chame as Blue-footed Boobies. A couple of Brown Boobies were also present, for variety's sake.