A day with the giants! The morning was spent visiting the Charles Darwin Research Station, where the tortoises were all feeding, oblivious to our presence. The main highlight was to see those magnificent creatures in the wild........Wild? Well, they're wild tortoises but they've broken into a farm as they prefer the grass and other easy rich pickings compared to getting caught up in the trees of the endemic Scalesia forest. They're usually quite nervous around humans, after the past experiences of their not-so-distance ancestors with the 19th-century whalers, but this one seemed quite unperturbed by our presence. Some of us even saw a vermilion flycatcher land on its back.
- Daily Expedition Reports
- 21 Jul 1999
From the Polaris in the Galapagos, 7/21/1999, National Geographic Polaris
- Aboard the National Geographic Polaris
- Galápagos
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