Land Birds of the Galapagos

The species variety of land birds on the Galapagos is quite limited which is to be expected because of the islands relatively young age and geographic isolation. But there were several species that were quite familiar to me. The first was the Vermilion Flycatcher that I have often seen in Arizona. There are also several records for this species in Montana. The bright red on the head and underparts were a welcome sight compared with the the drab colored and much more abundant Galapagos Finches. Another brightly colored species with which I am quite familiar was the Yellow Warbler, which is a common summer breeding species in Montana. The plumage of Galapagos yellow warblers is, however, a bit different from ours with the rusty cap being quite obvious. These birds are more similar to the "Mangrove" Yellow Warblers that I have seen in Mexico and they may be considered as a separate species pending DNA analysis.

Galapagos Finches - 13 species - were the most abundant land birds on the islands. Over many thousands of years, they all evolved from a single species as a result of isolation on various islands, elevational differences in habitat, and extremes of climate. They are all pretty much similar in plumage so the best way to differentiate them is by their relative size and the shape and size of their bills. This is a Small Ground Finch.Medium Ground Finch.Cactus Finches seemed to be fairly abundant.
But we found the Large Cactus Finch on only one island. There are 4 different Mockingbird species on the islands, three of which we observed. The forth species is found on an island that we did not visit. The Galapagos Mockingbird was the most common of this group and was found on a number of different islands.Hood Mockingbirds are found only on Espanola Island. They were extremely tame and often would investigate backpacks and other human items left on the beaches.Charles Mockingbirds were once abundant on Floreana Island but were extirpated by introduced rats and perhaps other non-native species. They are now found only on two small islets just to the west of Floreana where they can be viewed only from boats cruising around these islets.
We did manage to see and photograph several of them.

One of the more attractive of the native, endemic species is the Galapagos Dove. We encountered them on many of the islands but not in any abundance.

At the top of the food chain is the Galapagos Hawk. They are obviously descended from a Buteo type raptor that must have reached the islands many thousands of years ago.There was one relatively common introduced species that we saw on a number of occasions - Smooth-billed Ani. This species may pose a threat to some of the native species. It is unknown whether this bird arrived here on its own or was introduced by islanders, but it was most likely the latter.