Española Island

Española Island

Espanola Island is the southernmost of Ecuador's Galápagos Islands, about 10-12 hours by boat from Santa Cruz. The island is believed to be one of the oldest of the islands, having formed about four million years ago. With only a few centimeters of rain per year, the climate is generally dry. Today, Española Island is dying, turning slowly into a barren, rocky land with very little or no vegetation. Nevertheless, its huge bays have soft sand and are a haven for Galápagos Sea Lions. One of the main attractions of the island is the Waved Albatrosses, as almost the entire world population of this species breeds on the island from March to January. The mating dances of the Blue-Footed Boobies are another of the attractions. Gardner Bay, with its beach, and Suarez Point, with its abundant birdlife, are the two most popular spots on the island. The Hood Mockingbird, which has a longer and more curved beak than those of the central islands, the Española Lava Lizard and the Marine Iguana, of the subspecies venustissimus, with its red markings on the back, are all endemic to this island. It is also home to Swallow-Tailed Gulls, Galápagos Hawks and many other birds. BirdLife International has declared the island an Important Bird Area. A male Galápagos tortoise named Diego bred and revived the island's tortoise population, saving a species from extinction, it was widely reported in January 2020.