Birds of the Galapagos Islands
The birds of the Galapgaos Islands are famous for their uniqueness and diversity. The sea birds were probably the first arrivals to inhabit the islands, since they can most easily travel and do not mind if there is no land nearby, so can venture far out into the sea. Today, half of all the birds living on the Galapagos Islands are endemic, which means their particular species exists nowhere else on earth. There are three types of birds living on the chain of islands: Sea birds, shore and lagoon birds, and land birds. Probably the sea birds are the most famous of Galapagos birds, for their unusual character and immediate recognizance as symbols of the Galapagos Islands.
Sea Birds of the Galapagos
The sea birds on the Galapagos Islands originally came from Ecuador, Peru, colombia, and the Caribbean. They stopped over on the Islands during their migrating seasons, and eventually some stayed. Trade winds also helped bring birds to the Galapagos. A quarter of the sea birds on the Galapagos Islands are endemic to the islands.
The Flightless Cormorant
The flightless cormorant is large and black with a brown underbelly and blue eyes. The beak is long with a curved end, and the wings are not used for flight. Anyone who has been in a sub-tropical coastal area may have seen types of cormorants, standing on a branch in shallow water, for example, with wings spread. They are drying their wings this way, and all cormorants do this, even the Flightless Cormorant of the Galapagos Islands, even though it cannot even fly. It's just intuition from ancestral genes. These cormorants have had no reason to fly over the centuries, because there are no predators to stimulate flight. The Flightless Cormorant does swim, using its webbed feet. It eats fish, eels, and octopus.
The Flightless Cormorant is one of the rarest birds on earth, and there are only about a thousand of them. They nest in large groups on shore, wherever there are lots of fish in the water.
The Lava Gull
There are only two types of Gulls in the Galapagos Islands, and the lava gull is one of them. You might see other types of gulls, but they are only migrating, or passing through, using the Galapagos Islands as a rest stop.
The Lava Gull is endemic to the Galapagos Islands. You can tell a Lava Gull by the sooty grey color and the ring of white around its eyes. They eat crabs and lizards, dead fish, and sea lion afterbirth. They hunt around for food, eating whatever they can find. They can be very aggressive if protecting eggs in the nset. The feet are black, and so is the beak. Their call sounds like someone laughing, and they have strange submissive behavior of ducking the head between the legs, like they are looking for something behind them.
The Galapagos Penguin
The Galapagos Penguin is also endemic to the Galapagos Islands, and like the Flightless cormorant, they cannot fly. The wings are not useless, however, since the Galapagos Penguin uses its wings to swim. It uses its wings as fins, and its feet to steer as it swims very fast under water. Galapagos Penguins play in the water, similar to dolphins, jumping out of the water. On land, the Galapagos Penguin hops around and slides along on the rocks. They greet each other with head and neck movements, and preen each other and slap each other with their wing-fins. As you can see, Galapagos Penguins are fun to watch. They nest in large groups, like the Flightless Cormorant, and they sleep on land at night. Their enemies include rats, crabs, hawks, and snakes.
The Swallowtail Gull
Swallowtail Gulls are also endemic to the Galapagos Islands. You can tell it from the Lava Gull because the ring around the eye is red, not white. The red ring helps them to see at night, which is when they feed. They also have black beaks, and the feet are red. they used coral and pebbles to make nests, and lay only one egg at a time. They look for fish and squid while hunting, and go way out into the ocean to hunt. They developed the habit of night-feeding because most other birds hunt during the day. Less competition at night.
The Waved Albatross
The Waved Albatros is endemic to the Galapagos Islands and more specifically, to the island of Espanola, which is also called Hood Island. There are about 24,000 Waved Albatrosses here, and they are the largest bird in the Galapagos. They are truly regal looking, with a wingspan of over six feet. The wings are light brown, and the head is white. They use their tremendous wings to glide on the wind currents. They fly offshore to look for food, and actually fly as far away as Asia during their migration route season. They only mate in the Galapagos, however, so they return every year to build nests. They lay only one egg. They will roll the single egg across the rocks (nobody knows why).
Petrels
Petrels are actually a type of albatross. Like the albatross, they lay only one egg during mating season. The Hawaiian Petrel is protected by Galapagos National Park, which also tries to initiate conservation measures in support of the petrels. Their predators are introduced species such as feral dogs, feral cats, pigs and rats.
There are several types of Petrels in the Galapagos Islands:
Petrels in the Galapagos Islands
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- Galapagos Storm Petrel
<- Hawaiian Petrel
- Elliot's Storm Petrel
- Castro's Storm Petrel
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Audubon's Shearwater
Also endemic to the Galapagos Islands. They are dark brown and white and hail from the Antilles originally. It looks very similar to the Hawaiian Petrel, but is smaller and lighter in color. They also lay one egg, like the Petrels and the Albatrosses. There are about 10,000 of the Audubon's Shearwaters on the Galapagos Islands.
Frigatebirds
Great Frigatebirds Fregata minor are great fliers, and will cirle the air above the sea looking for fish to scoop up, or looking for food to steal from other birds. For all the time they spend circling above the ocean, it's surprising to learn that they cannot land on water. Their glands have lost the ability to produce oil, which would normally make their feathers waterproof. The two distinctive features of the Great Frigatebird are its enormous wingspan, and its red pouch under the throat. The pouch gets inflated during mating season, to attract females to the nest, which the male builds in hopes of making a family. The females do not have the red pouch. They court each other for a long time (or relatively long time, for birds), and the baby bird grows very slowly. The slow growth of the young, along with ability to fast, is an adaptation to irregular food supply.
The Magnificent Frigatebirds Fregata magnificens are only a little different from the Great Frigatebirds in appearance. The males look a bit purplish and the females have a black triangle on their throats. That's it. The behavior is different, however. The Magnificent Frigatebird hunts inshore rather than offshore. They are not endemic to the Galapagos Islands.
Boobies
Boobies (Sula) are everywhere on the Galapagos Islands and indeed are one of the most easily recognizable symbols of this chain of islands. There are blue-footed, red-footed, and the masked booby, now called the Nazca booby. They fish from the air and dive down quickly once they've spotted prey. Unfortunately, they'll five for fishermen's lures, too. They don't differentiate. They live in groups and teh Red-Footed boobies lay only one egg.
Shore and Lagoon Birds of the Galapagos
Herons
None of the herons listed below, found on the Galapagos Islands, are endemic to the Galapagos.
Herons in the Galapagos Islands
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- Night Heron Nyctanassa violacea
<- Great Egret (Common Egret) Casmerodius albus
- Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis
- Lava Heron Butorides sundevalli
- Great Blue Heron Ardea herodias
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The Oystercatcher
The Oystercatcher Haematopus ostralegus is brown with a white belly and a red eyering. They eat abalone and sea urchins. They have a long, thin bill which is orange.
The Flamingo
The Flamingo Phoenicopterus ruber is not common in the Galapagos Islands. If you find them, they will be amongst mangroves, or anywhere the water is shallow. It has sonar in its bill, and hunts for food in the shallow water. Shrimp and larvae are the mainstays of the Flamingo diet. They spend all day foraging for food, filtering water through their beaks. They build nests out of mud on the lagoons. They only mate every three or four years, and only lay one egg. They live about 20 years and are nervous birds, so if approached they will fly away easily. They Common Stilt is a friend bird, who warns the Flamingos if danger is near.
More Shore and Lagoon Birds
More Shore and Lagoon Birds in the Galapagos Islands
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- Northern Phalarope Phalaropus lobatus
- Common Stilt Himantopus himantopus
- Ruddy Turnstone Arenaria interpes
- Purple Gallinule Porphyrula martinica
- Common Gallinule Gallinula chloropus
- Semipalmated Plover Charadrius semipalmatus
- Bahama white-Cheeked Pintail Anas bahamensis
- Whimbrel Numenius phaeopus
- Sanderling Calidris alba
- Wandering Tattler Heteroscelus incanus
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Land Birds of the Galapagos
Three quarters of the land birds in the Galapagos are endemic. That means if you see a land bird on the Galapagos Islands, there's a 75% chance there's nowhere else on earth you can see that species of bird. This is what makes the Galapagos Islands one of the most fascinating places on earth. Land birds are sedentary, which means they are less apt to leave the island once they've arrived. Therefore, they will stay, inhabit, reproduce, and adapt, if necessary. This his how there is such a high rate of endemic species of land birds. They all came from the Americas originally, even North America. Trade winds brought them here, and they were stuck here, forced to stay and adapt. Competition and survival of the fittest brought on evolution, and hence an endemic, new species. There are almost 30 species of land birds today in the Galapagod Islands, 22 of which are endemic. Over half of the endemic species are types of Darwin's Finches. Four are mockingbirds, and the rest are one of each of: dove, flycatcher, hawk, martin, and rail.
The Galapagos Mockingbird
The Galapagos Mocking bird Nesomimus is a descendent of the longtail mockingbird mimus longicaudatus, which is from Ecuador. Mockingbirds are noisy, curious, and social. They are not afraid of humans. They live in communities. There are actually four endemic species of mocking birds on the Galapagos Islands:
Endemic Mockingbirds in the Galapagos Islands
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- Floreana mockingbird
- Hood mockingbird
- Galapagos mockingbird
- Cristobal mockingbird
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The Galapagos Dove
The Galapagos Dove is endemic to the Galapagos Islands. It's tiny, reddish-brown in color, and has a blue ring around the eye. They aren't very afraid of humans, and they forage on the ground for seeds and caterpillars.
Flycatchers
There are two types of flycatchers on the Galapagos Islands: the Vermilion Flycatcher Pyrocephalus rubinus, and the Large-Billed Flycatcher Myiarchus magnirostris. Only the latter is endemic.
The Yellow Warbler
The Yellow Warbler is from North America, and can be found as far north as Alaska and as far south as Peru. This bird travels! (which is probably why we find it in the Galapagos in the first place). They live in the mangroves and eat insects.
The Galapagos Martin
As the name suggests, the Galapagos Martin is endemic to the Islands. It looks like a swallow and it pretty rare. They live in nests they build on the cliffs in holes.
The Dark-Billed Cuckoo
The Dark-Billed Cuckoo is rare, although found all over South America.
The Smooth-Billed Ani
The Smooth-Billed Ani came from Ecuador, probably brought to the Galapagos Islands in the 1960's by settlers. They protect cattle from ticks, and can't fly long distances very well.
The Galapagos Rail
The Galapagos Rail is endemic. They eat insects and dead leaves. They cannot fly any more, after centuries of feeding on the ground. Unlike other land birds, the Galapagos Rail breeds during the cold season, which is June to December.
The Galapagos Hawk
The Galapagos Hawk is also endemic. The settlers pose a danger to this bird. They are dark brown with a whtie tail. They have no predators and very sharp eyesight for spotting small lizards, birds, and snakes from the air. They build nests in trees and on rocks.
Owls
On the Galapagos Islands you will find the Short-Eared Owl Asio flammeus and the Barn Owl Tyto alba. The Short-Eard Owl is endemic and so is the barn owl.
Darwin's Finches
Please see our Darwin page to learn about Darwin's Finches.
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