Galapagos wildlife,
month by month

Almost the entire world population nests at Punta Suárez on Española; birds arrive from about April, perform the bill-clacking courtship dance, raise a chick, then leave by December.

The only penguin found north of the equator is active year-round, but the cool-season upwelling brings more fish and livelier swimming encounters, mostly in the west and around Bartolomé.

Large, often visibly pregnant females pass the remote far-north dive sites of Darwin and Wolf, a liveaboard-only encounter with the world's biggest fish.

Schooling hammerheads are a year-round draw at Darwin and Wolf and can turn up at Kicker Rock; numbers and visibility are usually strongest in the cool season.

The islands' namesake is seen year-round in the Santa Cruz highlands; the warm season is the main mating period, after which females migrate to arid lowlands to nest.

The world's only sea-going lizard hauls out on lava everywhere; on Española the males flush red and green around the warm-season breeding period, the so-called Christmas iguana.

Playful colonies haul out on beaches and jetties all year; the main pupping season falls in the cool months when newborns crowd the sand.

Smaller and shyer than the sea lion, this eared seal shelters in shaded lava grottoes; the fur seal grotto at Puerto Egas on Santiago is the classic place to find one.

The high-stepping courtship dance that shows off those blue feet can be seen across much of the year; North Seymour and Española are reliable, with displays often picking up around mid-year.

The largest Galapagos booby nests in cliff-edge colonies at Punta Suárez and on Genovesa, where the grim reality of siblicide (the stronger chick ousts the weaker) plays out.

The smallest booby, and the only one that nests in trees, forms huge colonies on Genovesa; Punta Pitt on San Cristóbal is the rarer place to see all three booby species together.

Males inflate a scarlet throat pouch to court passing females; North Seymour hosts a large, accessible colony where displaying males sit right beside the trail.

The second frigatebird species dominates the Genovesa colonies and is hard to tell from the magnificent frigatebird in flight; the two often share the same islands.

Found only in the cool western waters, this stub-winged endemic lost the power of flight; nesting tends to concentrate in the cooler months. Punta Espinoza on Fernandina is the classic site (not in our site list).

Seen on most snorkels year-round; the warm season is the main nesting period when females haul out at night on quiet beaches such as Bachas, and mating pairs raft in the shallows.

Small numbers feed in brackish lagoons behind the beaches year-round, filtering brine shrimp; the lagoon at Punta Cormorant on Floreana is the classic spot.

Yellow land iguanas bask among the Opuntia cactus year-round; South Plaza and North Seymour are the reliable places to see them at close range.

A paler, more endemic land iguana lives only on Santa Fe, seen along the cactus-forest trail from the bay.

The islands' only diurnal raptor and top land predator is famously unafraid of people, often perching within a few metres on Española and Santa Fe.

On Genovesa, where there are no hawks, this owl hunts by day at Prince Philip's Steps, ambushing storm petrels among the lava, an unusual daytime spectacle.

A small, tame endemic dove with a bright blue eye-ring feeds on the ground in the arid zone, often walking the trails at Punta Suárez.

The scarlet males are a jolt of colour in the green Scalesia highlands of Santa Cruz; the species has declined and is now scarce on some islands.

A curious brown flycatcher, the tamest bird on the islands, will land on hats and camera lenses in the dry and transition zones.

The 13-plus closely related species whose beaks helped shape evolutionary theory are seen across the islands year-round; breeding ramps up with the warm-season rains.

The finch of the long-running Daphne Major study, its beak size shifts measurably between wet and drought years, textbook evolution in action.

One of the few tool-using birds in the world, it holds a cactus spine or twig in its beak to winkle grubs out of bark, best looked for in the Santa Cruz highland forest.

The most widespread of four mockingbird species, bold and inquisitive, it hops the trails in family groups and will investigate visitors' bags for water.

The largest and boldest mockingbird, found only on Española, has a long curved bill and a notorious habit of landing on people to beg for water.

The bright yellow warbler flits along nearly every beach and mangrove edge, from the shoreline to the highlands, one of the few small birds you cannot miss.

Small lizards doing push-up displays on the lava are on almost every trail; several island-specific species exist, and males become most territorial through the cooler mating months.

A secretive, near-flightless rail skulks through the dense highland vegetation and Scalesia forest; heard far more often than seen.

A gangly all-black bird now common in the agricultural highlands, introduced by farmers and considered invasive; a rare example of a bird you should not be glad to see.

The world's only nocturnal, mostly open-ocean gull nests on the cliffs of Genovesa and South Plaza; the big dark eye and red eye-ring help it feed on squid at night.

Thought to be the rarest gull on Earth with only a few hundred pairs, this sooty-grey bird scavenges around the harbours of Puerto Ayora and Puerto Baquerizo Moreno.

A white seabird with long tail streamers nests in cliff crevices and wheels over the sea cliffs of South Plaza and Genovesa, calling in a shrill scream.

Pelicans plunge-dive around the fish markets and mangroves; the Puerto Ayora fish market is the guaranteed place to watch them mob the counter for scraps.

A dark tern with a pale cap, it rides on the heads of feeding pelicans and boobies to snatch small fish, and nests in shady sea caves and cliff ledges.

Vast clouds of these tiny seabirds swirl over the colony at Prince Philip's Steps on Genovesa, one of the few storm petrels active by day, hunted there by the short-eared owl.

This endemic petrel feeds far out at sea but nests in burrows in the humid highlands, where introduced rats and pigs have hit it hard; most often seen from the boat on crossings.

A black-and-white shorebird with a heavy orange bill probes the tide pools for shellfish; pairs are scattered thinly along rocky shores such as Puerto Egas.

A small, sooty endemic heron stalks crabs and small fish across the black lava and mangrove roots, so dark it can be hard to pick out against the rock.

A stocky, grey night heron with a bold face pattern roosts by day near lagoons and jetties, coming out at dusk to hunt crabs; often seen loafing around town waterfronts.

The largest heron stands motionless in the shallows and mangroves waiting to spear fish, and will take newly hatched turtles and small iguanas on the beaches.

A long down-curved bill marks this migrant wader, which flies down from North America to winter on Galapagos shores, most numerous in the northern-hemisphere winter.

The commonest shark you will see, it rests in packs on sandy channel floors by day; the lava channel at Las Tintoreras on Isabela is named for it (tintorera is the local word for reef shark).

A bold requiem shark first described from these waters, it patrols the outer reefs and cliffs; snorkellers sometimes meet it in the channel at Kicker Rock.

Large schools of these tawny rays glide in formation through sheltered mangrove coves such as Black Turtle Cove, best seen from a quiet panga at slack tide.

A striking dark ray peppered with white spots and a long tail, it flaps gracefully over sandy bottoms and often turns up on snorkels at Devil's Crown.

The biggest ray in the world, with a wingspan that can top five metres, cruises the plankton-rich currents; encounters are more of a warm-season, blue-water surprise.

Bottlenose dolphins ride the bow wave on channel crossings year-round, a common and reliable sight from the deck between islands.

Big, fast-moving superpods of common dolphins gather over the cool, nutrient-rich upwellings off the western islands, especially in the cool season.

The baleen whale most often seen here feeds in the productive Bolivar Channel between Isabela and Fernandina, where cetacean sightings peak with the cool-season bloom.

Blazing orange-and-blue crabs scatter across the black lava at the waterline on every rocky shore; the vivid adults are one of the most photographed things in the islands.

One of the world's rarest birds; long extinct on Floreana itself, it survives only on the tiny satellite islets of Champion and Gardner-by-Floreana, so any sighting from a dinghy is a real stroke of luck.

The rarest of Darwin's finches, down to around a hundred birds in a few mangrove stands on western Isabela; effectively impossible to see on a normal cruise, but a headline conservation story.