In Darwin’s Footsteps – Birds, The Galapagos and Evolution

My family travelled to the Galapagos in 2010. We hoped to return but that may not happen.

So, today we’ll travel to the Eastern Pacific Island group in our memory aided by our photos and a short piece I wrote for Empty Nest magazine.

As you know, these remote islands gained fame as a result of a visit by British naturalist Charles Darwin in September and October of 1835.

Finches

After landing at Seymour Airport (GPS) on Baltra Island, following a nine hundred kilometre, two hour plus flight from Quito, our attention was drawn to several nondescript birds just outside the terminal .

“They are some of Darwin’s finches,” Chris Eckert, a biology professor from Queen’s University in Kingston told us back in February 2010.  Chris was along as a resource person for our expedition. “This is the mecca for evolutionary studies,” he enthused. 

There are 17 different types of finches (cactus finches) on the Galapagos.  These finches have different beaks, depending on which island the reside.  That demonstrates they have adapted to different types of food.  They’ve changed over time through natural selection.

Darwin’s analysis took many years.  He turned his bird specimens over to ornithologist John Gould.  Soon Gould delivered the “unexpected and startling news” that the finches “belonged to a new group of birds previously unknown and found only in the Galapagos,”  

Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859 twenty-four years after visiting the Galapagos on his five-year journey. There was, of course, pushback from the scientific community. Perhaps surprisingly, there wasn’t significant opposition from UK Christian Church community.

More recently, in 2005, Dr. Eckert noted that: “even though the theory of evolution dominates academia, 47 per cent of Americans are creationists, and creation science is taught in 15-20 per cent of U.S. schools? How about the fact that 40 per cent of Americans believe human beings were formed in the exact state we are now, or that 52 percent believe dinosaurs co-existed with humans?”

Hmm!

Back to our trip.  Shortly after we boarded the M/V Santa Cruz and in the coming days visited several other unique Galapagos Islands. North Seymour, for example, featured blue footed boobies (below) and frigate birds.

The Galapagos, a province of Ecuador, and is made up of 18 main islands. Ecuador is a poor country so that it is remarkable that decision makers and environmentalists are invested in protecting the sustainability of the islands in a way that I wish we could do here. 

One way they do this is by limiting the number of visitors and requiring they be accompanied by a local guide. The year we travelled just 80,000 visitors were permitted.  In 2023, a record-breaking nearly 330,000 tourists explored the islands.  Concerns have been expressed with this escalation. 

What’s Going on with those Eastern Island Tomato Plants?

In the last month new research has put forward the idea that some tomatoes in the Galápagos actually seem to be going backwards, not forwards in evolutionary terms Call it De-evolution, or reverse evolution,

“It’s not something we usually expect,” Adam Jozwiak, a molecular biochemist at UC Riverside and lead author of a study said.  “But here it is, happening in real time, on a volcanic island,” he told Newsweek magazine.  Tomato plants on westerly warmer islands don’t seem to be experiencing this change.

It isn’t a concept that easy to explain.  The theory is that modern tomatoes and other plants all make use of alkaloids. These tomatoes seem to be making the wrong alkaloids. 

“Instead of creating the alkaloids that the researchers expected to see in a tomato, the de-evolving plants are churning out a version of alkaloids that have the same molecular fingerprint as eggplant relatives from millions of years ago,” Newsweek reported.

It is hard to say whether devolving tomatoes are a good thing, a bad thing or just a new challenge to further understanding of evolution. *

Most visitors come to the Islands to see the unique wildlife, like blue-footed boobies and marine iguanas, that you can’t find anywhere else.  Al Purdy visited around 1980.  He must have gone to North Seymour as you can imagine from the ending of his poem Birdwatching at the Equator.  

                                           The blue booby’s own capsule

                                                          comment about evolution:

                                                          If God won’t do it for you

                                                          do it yourself: 

                                                          stand up

                                                          sit down

                                                          make love

                                                          have sone babies

                                                          catch fish

                                                          dance sometimes

                                                         admire your feet

                                                         friggit:

                                                         what else is there?

*A good description of the de-evolving tomatoes can be found at Scientists Stunned As Tomatoes “De-Evolve” in the Galapagos

Worrying about “Backyard” Birds

Following is a little piece that I wrote last year before COVID hit and we had other things to worry about then birds in our backyards.   Here is hoping this year we will return to something approaching normalcy.

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Last year I had planned to sign up for the Great Backyard Bird Count. I just forgot to do it.  Next year I’ll sign up for sure although it presents some issues for me.

The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) (https://www.birdscanada.org/bird-science/great-backyard-bird-count/) is billed as a free, fun, and easy event that engages bird watchers to count birds.  You can do this for as little as 15 minutes in your backyard or anywhere you want for that matter.  The Count is open to experts, beginners or non-experts like me. 

I wish my excuse for forgetting the GBBC last year was that I was busy. However, for the days in question mostly what I was doing was sitting at my keyboard, concocting excuses for not doing housework and looking out my windows at my bird feeders.  

(I’ve got eight feeders up right now. One family member says eight is too many.  A Port Rowan neighbour has fourteen, I point out, so you can’t really object to eight, right?)

But, back to my point here which is that I’ve been thinking and thinking and thinking some more about backyard birds; the context being that we run a small bed and breakfast and many of our guests are birders.  The contemplation of this conundrum is causing me considerable anxiety.

Do you know any birders? 

I’m generalizing here but birders are much like any other people who adopt an intense interest in a hobby. They are enthused, obsessed;  some even fanatical. 

The French novelist Honore de Balzac has said that,  “a hobby is a happy medium between a passion and a monomania.” 

Humour columnist Dave Barry wrote that hobbies of any kind are boring except to people who have the same hobby.

These insights are not lost on yours truly.  

And then there is the whole problem of what to call the hobby/obsession.

I realized that I wasn’t sensitive to this issue when watching the movie - The Big Year.  In that flick Steve Martin’s character (Stu) is insult put down by a professional for leaving work to go bird watching.  Stu took great umbrage.

“It’s called birding,” huffed Stu!! 

 Our home is located in great birding territory.  Indeed, it is a not so well known fact that more bird species have been seen in the Port Rowan/Long Point area than the much ballyhooed Point Peele vicinity. 

Issues

Carolina Wren seen IN our Backyard

Some have suggested that we ought to keep a list of all birds seen in our backyard. There are, however, a number of vexing issues that the development of such a list would present.

For example, to be counted does a bird actually have to touch down in our yard? That would be a fairly clear-cut definition to use.

But what if, say, one observes a “good” bird flying over one’s yard? We had an immature bald eagle fly past sometime back.   Now, to be frank, it is probably more accurate to say it was over the neighbour’s yard. But let’s face it, our list would be a superior one if I could add that bald eagle. So, I’m leaning to the backyard list inclusion criteria being “seen from my backyard.” That should make for a better quality list.

But here’s another worry. From my front yard I have a distant view of the Inner Harbour of Long Point Bay on Lake Erie and this will surely produce many shorebirds and an enhanced list. In fact, a few years ago on Easter Sunday we recorded a couple of white pelicans flapping and gliding over the Bay. Clearly, it will be more gratifying for my guests, then, if that backyard list captures anything that can be seen from the front yard as well.

White Pelicans seen FROM
our Backyard

 I’m certain the guests will be keen to contribute to the   list. In fact, repeat visitors (some do actually return)   could be encouraged to have their own personalized list.   Perhaps this will be an incentive to return.

 Do I anticipate problems? Well, I’m told that some   birders can be competitive and argumentative.  (Did I   mention that we took photos to document those white   pelicans?)  

 So, if there are disagreements on sightings will it fall to  the reluctant but affable host to resolve disputes?

 And will guests be trampling all over my much-in-need   of  landscaping front yard in an effort to maximize their  viewing range

And what about the neighbours?

Lots to think about....

A Good Walk Perfected

Sometimes I wonder whether what I’ve written is relevant.  Perhaps at a point in time a piece was newsworthy or interesting.  However, time and current events often catch up and leave your piece as something to be filed under “P” for passed its best before date.

However, this story, basically a report on a presentation on birds and birding, seems more relevant today that when I put fingers to keyboard back in May of 2014. 

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It has been said that golf is a good walk spoiled.

But birding is “a good walk perfected.”  That was the message Jeff Gordon brought recently  to a large group of outdoor enthusiasts at Bird Studies Canada’s (BSC) National Office in Port Rowan just about 400 metres from my residence.

Yes, we have a National Office in Port Rowan. And Gordon, a celebrity in the birding world was a most able and appropriate speaker as spring migration is ramping up here on Ontario’s South Coast.

Gordon heads up the American Birding Association (ABA), a non-profit organization that provides leadership to North America birders and also contributes to bird and bird habitat conservation through its programs.

He was in town to participate as the Celebrity Birder in the annual Baillie Birdathon as well as to speak at this special event billed as a Celebration of Birding.

Gordon is passionate about birding and birds.  He worries, though, that birders need to open up to others who may be interested in nature and the outdoors but are intimidated by the vast knowledge many experienced birders present.  Rather birders need to be “evangelists” about their hobby and help “break down barriers” for newcomers.

Gordon’s presentation included plenty of action shots of birders from around North America including Alvaro Jaramillo. (Jaramillo coined the “good walk perfected” line.)  The ABA head takes these types of pictures because birders are good at taking photos of warblers and eagles and the like but not so good at taking pictures of people enjoying birds.  More images that capture the “grandeur of birding” are needed.

Earlier in the day, local ornithologist Tim Lucas found a rare Kirtland’s Warbler near the entrance to the new Long Point Provincial Park.  This is considered North America’s rarest warbler and is normally found only in a small area in the north central part of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula during breeding season.

Gordon and a dozen or so others were there.  He captured the excitement on his smart phone and shared the footage in the evening presentation thereby reinforcing his key message.

I think Gordon made his point well that night.  The next day another relatively rare bird was located in the area.  Check out this picture from Jody Allair's twitter account and you should be able to share in the enthusiasm with those seeing a Bell’s Vireo for the first time.

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This story was originally published by Forever Young, a Metroland paper.

Update:

**In 2020 Bird Studies Canada changed in name to Birds Canada.  That change is recognition that their work extends beyond the study of birds and encompasses “public engagement, habitat stewardship, education and training, involvement in guiding conservation decisions, and more.”

**If you’re not doing anything on New Year’s Eve, join the American Bird Association (ABA) as they announce the new Bird of the Year at midnight St Pierre et Miquelon time (10 pm EST)