A spectacular day in the Galapagos on the season’s first family program, exploring. A walk past blue-footed booby nests, watching comical courtship displays and seeing a few of them incubating their eggs. At the blowhole, there was time to sit and watch the waves spout 90 feet into the air. Linda, our Family Program Coordinator, had some of us making "sound maps" of the many things we could hear. Then it was on to see the nesting colony of waved albatrosses. What a day...After landing on Española (Hood) Island, one of the first things we encountered was the Hood mockingbird, found here and nowhere else. They are bold, cheeky, and totally unafraid of people! This afternoon, a landing on Genovesa (Tower) Island. It’s near the end of the breeding season for the great frigatebirds, but there are still quite a few males with their red pouches inflated. It’s a tough life -- theysit there looking as gorgeous as possible, in the hope that a passing female willfind them hopelessly attractive. It works for them -- there’s no shortage of frigatebirds at all, with hundreds soaring overhead and still more incubating eggs and chicks. An incredible spectacle.