Houston Audubon Nature Photography Meeting May 1

Pat Sheets will cover their trip aboard the National Geographic Endeavour II to the Galápagos Islands in June 2023. It will also include some photos of tropical Andes birds taken at the Mashpi Lodge 70 miles north of Quito. The islands their cruise ship explored included North Seymour and Rabida islands where they found land iguanas, sea lions colonies, the blue-footed booby and frigate bird nesting colonies. On Fernandina Island they saw the marine iguana colonies, flightless cormorants, Sally Lightfoot crabs and green sea turtles. Fur seals were observed on Isabela Island. Other islands explored were Santiago, Santa Cruz (home to to the Charles Darwin Research Station) and San Cruz where they saw the giant tortoises in the wild. A hike on the island of San Cristobal led them to the red-footed Nazca and blue-footed boobies.