580. The Galapagos Islands - Christina Sinclair: Salty Sam's Fun Blog for Children

March 27th, 2026

Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children

Number 580

The Galápagos lslands

Hello Everyone

Last week, l was telling you about how life on Earth evolved over many millions of years – but evolution has actually never stopped.

Scientific projects constantly gauge how some creatures are still developing in order to fit into their environments better – in terms of finding food and protecting themselves in order to survive.

Any adaptations they develop, will be passed on to their offspring, and if these adaptations are going to help them to be successful, they will survive better and have even more offspring.

Scientists today, are finding that birds that have in the past migrated vast distances to escape the cold, British winter are now staying as the temperatures tend to be higher and their diet of insects is still available to them.

Why embark on a potentially dangerous and arduous (tiring) journey when you don’t have to? The birds’ wings seem to be becoming shorter as they cease (stop) flying on these long journeys to the southern hemisphere in autumn.

Stoats that changed their coats to a white colour in order to camouflage themselves in order to try and hide from predators in the snow, are now retaining brown on their coats as our winters become less snowy.

One of the most famous projects studying the way animals adapt to their surroundings, would be the studies focussed on a group of birds called Darwin’s finches.

This group of birds are to be found on a group of islands called the Galápagos lslands.

A group of islands is sometimes called an archipelago.

The birds are thought to have arrived as one species on an island about two to three million years ago. Since that time the one species has diversified into fifteen different species – all with different shaped beaks. These beaks have adapted to eat a kind of food available to them whether it be: insects, fruit or nuts.

They are still adapting today as the species of plants on the islands change.

Charles Darwin came to the islands on his famous ship The Beagle in 1835, when he was only 26-years-old, during a long tour of discovery that he had undertaken. The islands had been known about by Europeans from the middle of the 16^th century.

After studying the natural world in many places on this tour, Darwin began to develop further his theory of evolution that was to take the world by storm.

Galápagos is an old Spanish word for tortoise. The full-grown tortoises to be found on these islands are the biggest on the planet. They are a spectacular size.

They too have adapted to their surroundings just like the finches. Some tortoises graze on the ground and have quite flat shells above their head, and some need to reach their heads up to eat from bushes – their shells arch over their necks to allow their heads to get as high up as possible.

These tortoises can live to be more than 150-years-old, but some species that used to live on the islands, have become extinct due to human interference. The sailors of old, used to take tortoises aboard ship to use as fresh food during long voyages.

There is a tortoise breeding centre now set up to breed tortoises that will be let into the wild when they are old enough to look after themselves. These schemes are becoming very successful and the animals continue to be monitored.

The Galápagos lslands are situated on the Equator, and lie in the enormous Pacific Ocean; over 500 miles from the coast of South America.

They were formed by volcanoes spewing up rock into mounds that eventually broke above the surface of the sea to form several islands. ln ‘world terms’ the land is very new – just a few million years old. There are 18 larger islands, 3 small islands and over 100 tiny ones which can be called islets. There are still active volcanoes in this archipelago.

The islands are owned by the Republic of Ecuador, and many people from Ecuador live there. There are nearly 30,000 people living on the islands altogether. The biggest population is on Santa Cruz.

The islands have dramatic, bare, rocky coasts and mountains formed of porous and sometimes sharp volcanic rock.

There are tropical beaches, bright sunny forests of trees, rough scrub, ferns, thorny bushes and tall cacti.

Naturalists sometimes refer to the islands as a ‘lost world’.

That means that there are species of plants and creatures that live on and around the islands that do not live anywhere else in the world.

Here you will find the only tropical penguin in the world, the only tropical sea lion and the only marine iguana (that means it goes swimming in the sea). lt can amazingly hold its breath for up to 40 minutes.

There are nearly 3,000 other marine species that swim around the coasts too.

Many of the species that call the islands home are protected species; amongst them: seabirds, sharks and turtles.

There are many research and conservation programmes, and the sea around the islands has been declared a marine reserve. ln 1990, the archipelago became a whale sanctuary. Hunting of whales was no longer allowed in this area.

Many tourists visit every year; about a quarter of a million. They can arrive by aeroplane or boat. But if they wish to visit some of the islands especially to see the wildlife, they must be accompanied by a guide who will marshal them around. Most of the land mass is national park.

However, whilst lounging on the tourist beaches, they will be able to get up close and personal with many animals which are used to living in close proximity with humans and seem to have no fear of them. Humans and sea lions sunbathe next to each other. Both humans and pelicans walk around the streets.

Strict bio-security is always in place to ensure that no seeds, food or creatures of any type come aboard the islands in order to make sure that the unique ecosystem is protected from outside invasion.

Anything like dogs, cats, rats, mice, pigs, goats, snails, insects or plants could decimate (destroy) defenceless local populations of animals or plants by killing them, overpowering them or crowding them out in a relatively short time.

The Galápagos lslands were declared a World Heritage Site in 1978, and have been under special protection ever since.

Bye bye everyone – don’t forget to subscribe to my blog!

Love and kisses

Salty Sam

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www.christina-sinclair.com

Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week

Bill: What does Armageddon mean?

Bob: lt means l’m a geddon out of here!

Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015

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desk THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK

This week, we had some good news in Rocky Bay.

A lifeguard station is to be built on the tourist beach in Sandy Cove – which is just to the east of our little town.

We already have a very clean, sandy beach there which is regularly cleaned.

We have bins for recyclable materials.

The litter bins are regularly emptied so that they neither spill over nor start to smell when it gets really hot.

There are slopes down to the beach to afford easy access for all.

We have toilet facilities and drinking water available and a strict policy about dogs being kept under control.

We have first aid equipment being installed for the lifeguards to use.

The mayor of Rocky Bay has set up a beach management committee.

With any luck one day we may even get awarded with a blue flag!

The Blue Flag is a certification to say that a beach or marina – a place where you can park, or I should say moor your boat, is kept to high standards.

Blue Flags are awarded in countries all over the world; Spain, Greece and Turkey have a lot of Blue Flag beaches.

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Quick Quiz

Do you know what these words mean?

assembly
apportion
apparition
ancestor
atheist
auditorium
avarice
augment
arduous
ample

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lt’s the Weekend!

HOW TO MAKE A PLACE MAT

These place mats can be made in any fabric to match your décor.

Wash your fabrics first in case they need to be pre-shrunk. If the fabric shrinks after you have made your place mat, your work will be ruined.

You will want to use washable fabric.

Work on a table top rather than your lap so that you can get all your pieces to lie flat as you work.

Tacking stitches

Cut some interfacing fabric to be the shape and size you want your mat to be.

You will need two pieces the same for each mat.

Cut your patterned fabric 4cm bigger in length and width.

This will give you 2cm all the way around to wrap around the interfacing.

Pin and then tack your fabric into place and iron so that you have a nice, crisp, straight edge.

You may need to snip off the tip of the corners to get rid of a bit of the bulk of the fabric as you work your way around, but do not clip too much away.

Sandwich the two sides of the place mat together with the interfacing on the inside and using over-sew stitching sew all around the edge of the mat. Make your stitches, small, neat and even.

Of course, you could use the same patterned fabric for the top and the bottom or different ones.

Pull out your tacking stitches.

You can make special mats for Christmas for all your family, or you could make one for a baby in a present hamper, or you could make a large one to go under a small Christmas tree sitting on a side table.