A nice moment here between a mother Galapagos sea lion and her young pup. Galapagos sea lions are just slightly smaller than their relatives in California. They occur on each of the islands in the Galapagos archipelago. Every place we saw a bit of sandy beach, we also saw sea lions. When there was no sand, they were basking in the sun on the rocks… or in the middle of a trail, or on a boat, or on the park benches and sidewalks of the few larger islands that were inhabited by people. These two were on our favorite island, Fernandina — a beautiful place, devoid of any people but full of all the creatures that the Galapagos are famous for.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 400, f/6.3 at 1/500th of a second (0.33 ev)

Galápagos penguins are the only penguins that live north of the equator. Not that they cross over into the northern hemisphere by much. The equator goes right through the middle of the archipelago, and it’s only a few of the northern islands that are above it. We didn’t see too many of these guys but we did get a few good looks at them on the rocky shoreline of Isabela Island. We also saw them while snorkeling, but only for an instant as they zipped past.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 240mm) ISO 400, f/9 at 1/1000th of a second (-0.33 ev)

While I was photographing some birds, I looked over and saw this lava lizard peeking at me from behind a rock. There are many different species of lava lizard on the Galápagos Islands, all however, are believed to have evolved from a single ancestral species. The different species are colored a bit differently depending upon the island that they inhabit — in other words, on islands with more black lava rock, the lizards are darker, whereas on light sandy islands, they are much lighter in color.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 400, f/8 at 1/1000th of a second (-0.33 ev)

I was going to post a shot from Australia or Madagascar or Costa Rica or some place else in the world besides Ecuador, but than I saw this photo and I said, yeah, I need to post that one tonight. This young sea lion was full of confidence as it confronted the front of my camera, protecting its mother in the background.

Nikon D700 with Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 lens (at 35mm) ISO 800, f/11 at 1/160th of a second

It was mating season for the Galápagos giant tortoises when we were there in November. The males had come down from high in the hills and were gathering at lower elevations in the fields of Santa Cruz Island. I found these four resting and cooling off in a small pond in the heat of mid day.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 17-35mm lens (at 32mm) ISO 400, f/7.1 at 1/800th, 1/3200th, 1/1600th, 1/400th and 1/200th of a second (HDR)

We spotted this magnificent frigatebird chick on the island of Genovesa in the Galápagos Islands. As you can see, it kind of looked like it was wearing a boa. We saw quite a few of these chicks, but none quite as fluffy as this.
Nikon D700 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 360mm) ISO 400, f/4 at 1/1250th of a second

The Galápagos hawk is the apex predator on the Galápagos Islands — meaning it is at the top of the food chain and has no natural predators. Even so, it is an endangered species and there are only about 150 mating pairs left in existence. This has to do with human disturbance to their natural habitat, a dwindling food supply, and predation by humans. All that being said, we saw quite a few of them, including this guy that we ran into on the island of Rábida. We were on a hike and he seemed very intrigued by us, following us for quite some time, landing next to us and then turning his head from side to side while he looked from face to face.
Nikon D700 with Nikkor 200-400mm f/4 lens (at 400mm), ISO 400, f/5.6 at 1/1000th of a second (0.67 ev)

Hope everyone had a great holiday break. Still lots of Ecuador shots to go through, but I promise to start mixing in some photos from other parts of the world this week. In the meantime, here’s another of the Galapagos sea lions that were playing with us underwater. They would swim right up to our face masks, mouths wide open, and then dive beneath us before circling back around again. This lasted for about half an hour or so before our guide had to practically drag us out of the water.
Nikon D800 camera with Nikkor 17mm lens (at 17mm) in an Ikelite housing with an 8 inch dome port, ISO 800, f/7 at 1/400th of a second (-0.67 ev)

The Hercules beetle is the largest of the rhinoceros beetles, reaching a length of up to almost seven inches. This one seemed to be close to that. Females are actually larger bodied than the males, but they don’t have the horn, so are considerably shorter in length. And not only are they one of the largest beetles in the world — pound for pound, they also have the distinction of being the strongest animals in the world, able to lift as much as 850 times their own weight. This one was photographed in the cloud forest of Ecuador.
Nikon D700 camera with Nikkor 17-35mm lens (at 17mm), ISO 1600, f/8 (0.33 ev) at 1/40th of a second.

This guy is one of the many species of glass frog that can be found in the tropical rain forests of Central and South America. This particular species of the emerald glass frog is native to Ecuador. They are called glass frogs because the skin on their underside is translucent and you can see straight through to their inner organs, including the heart, liver and gastrointestinal tract. Obviously, I wasn’t going to flip the little guy over, but you can sort of see the translucent skin on the second of the three shots down where the torso meets the leg.
Nikon D800 camera with Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 200, f/10 (first shot), f/14 (second and third shots), 1/60th of a second with two SB-R200 wireless flash heads attached to the front of the lens