Darwin’s Finches and Mockingbirds:

I have always believed the story of Darwin’s 5 weeks in the Galapagos Islands and how he studied the differences in the finches’ beaks and voila he visualized the full process of evolution. Then he was able to enlighten the scientific world and we had the prototype of diversity of species and survival of the selected amongst the multitude. I set off for the self same islands and was told very little had changed since Charles Darwin’s visit and these islands have been preserved as Nature Parks.

Charles Darwin was the naturalist to the HMS Beagle. He arrived at the Galapagos Islands in 1835 and he was 27 years old. His job was to collect rocks and fossils, birds and animals, plants and trees and send the specimens to senior scientists in London and Cambridge. He arrived first on San Cristobal Island next he stopped at Floreanna Island where he walked the trail from Gardner Bay Beach to the home of the Governor, about a mile and half walk uphill. Then the Beagle went to Santa Cruz Island, the present home of the Charles Darwin Research Station and finally to Isabella Island and at the end of 5 weeks sailed away forever.

So I arrive at the islands camera ready to get some shots of Darwin’s finches and have the necessary documentation of the great Scientist’s genius. And so I proceeded to look for the finches. I saw several and found them more black and brown and considerably more drab than the finches back home in San Antonio. We have House Finches with their rich pinks and purples and Gold finches with their stunning yellow and black. Well if Darwin’s finches were brown and black that would make them the easier to camouflage in the bleak black and brown colors of the lava rocks and the vegetation in islands.

I was able to locate one or two finches on each of the islands we set upon. Click! Click! as if my pictures were going to prove or disprove the entire Theory of Evolution. So I proceeded to San Cristobal, then Espanola followed by Floreanna, Santa Cruz, Santiago, Chinese hat and finally Genovesa Island. I did get some shots of thick Grosbeaks, small sharp beaks, long powerful beaks, vegetarian finch beaks and on and on.

On each island there were Mockingbirds aplenty, not at all shy, approaching readily and with personality plus. It was hard not to be enchanted by these daring and feisty rascals that tried to open backpacks and climb on water bottles etc. The Charles Mockingbird on Espanola Island was on the Endangered list and only 44 birds were remaining of that particular variety. We did see them from the zodiac on Champion’s islet.

The Northern Mockingbird is the state bird of Texas and I am familiar and fond of these birds and the ones in the Galapagos Islands were similar but not quite but I couldn’t put my finger on what the differences could be. I just kept clicking hoping when I was home and saw the pictures I would have an Ah ha experience!

Then I learned from the NatGeo/Linblad documentary on Charles Darwin that it was never the finches of the Galapagos but the Mockingbirds of the Galapagos which were most influential in helping Darwin study the various adaptations the birds had made to the conditions prevailing on each island. The Mockingbirds were collected with complete information as to the location they had been acquired. The Finches had been collected and all lumped together without specifying which island they had originated from and a proper study of different adaptations was not possible because of not identifying origin. Hmmm. So much for a lifelong belief in the myth of the Finches of the Galapagos helping Darwin uncover the keys to the process of adaptation and evolution. It was the Mockingbirds of the Galapagos that the entire credit goes to. Nice to get the facts right after all these years.