Dear Diary, 

I have to tell you about this memory. I must have had a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I will never forget. I'm excited to tell my teachers and friends when school starts since I've learned many things about Geospiza fuliginosa. Did you wonder what it is? Let me tell you about it.

This is my father. His name is Jack. He is a bird watcher, researcher and photographer. It all started with my father's surprise for me. He told me that you will learn the surprise on the train. Yes, I knew we were going somewhere, but I still didn't know where we were going.

Yes, that time has arrived. My father told me that we would be travelling to Ecuador. Because of my father's job, we were heading to a little island named Santa Cruz to study the Geospiza fuliginosa bird. When I asked where Santa Cruz Island was, my father gave me this answer. We were going to the Galapagos Islands, where Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory, discovered these birds endemic to this island.

We're on the plane right now, and my father is telling me about the bird he's studying as we're floating like a bird above the ocean.

Geospiza fuliginosa, as we call small ground finch, has a tiny beak that can eat only small seeds. It is found primarily in dry lowland zones dominated by cactus and dwarf trees. Their lifecycle is about for five to 10 years. Their viable sizes are 11 cm in length. While this knowledge was fascinating, my father enlightened me with much more interesting facts. Let me give you a few examples. Males are black, while females are striped and lighter in appearance. One more fact, the Latin name's meaning is Geo: ground, spiza: finch and fuliginosa: sooty. I'm looking forward to seeing them up close.

Finally, we arrived at the airport in Ecuador. It's mid-June, and the weather is sunny, hot, and humid compared to Canada. My father predicted that the island would be considerably hotter. We boarded a bus to the harbour and then a medium-sized boat to the island.

As soon as we got on the boat, we became friends with Samuel, the son of my father's colleague Simon. He said he could be a translator for me on the island because he speaks Spanish so that I could learn a lot more information. My father's friend, Samuel, was assigned to study the giant tortoises on the island. He told me that small ground finch and giant tortoise are in common. He asked me what it could be, and I didn't know. And he told me you'd understand as you get closer to the beach. 

We got very close to the shore, and as I have seen, most places are desert, and I can usually see cactus, flamingos, giant tortoises, small ground finch and flamingos. Some small ground finches were eating something on the giant tortoises. So I asked Uncle Simon if the small ground finches were cleaning the turtles. He says they have a mutualistic relationship in which the small ground finches fly over them, land on them, and assist them in cleaning off parasites so they can survive and renew their shells. That was interesting.

We came to the tent site and set up our tent, there were a lot of researchers here, and it was just Samuel and me as a kid. The thing that draws my attention is the absence of the bird that we want to examine very much here because, after the settlement of humans, the habitats of the birds disappeared. So we'll spend the night and go to their habitat the next day.

We lit a fire in the common area toward the evening, and everyone began to gather and chat. I asked all of the questions I had on my mind. For example, why did we choose Santa Cruz over the other Galapagos islands? According to Professor Loreen, some islands are not accessible to everyone and are not appropriate for human life. However, most small ground finches are not found in Santa Cruz. Because this island has highlands and larger foods, small ground finches are in competition with other birds. Small ground finches have a lower chance of survival since they can't reach small foods in Santa Cruz.

My father, Samuel, Simon, and I walked out to scout, and after a short distance, we noticed the small ground finches, but there was one thing that piqued our interest. It's been droughty everywhere since a massive human-caused fire broke out in the birds' habitat last year. As a result, the population of small ground finches has decreased. That was too unfortunate. 

We met an old man as we walked farther into the woods, but he only spoke Spanish. So Samuel translated what he said for me. That man has been on this island for 12 years and has spent his whole life researching ground finches. We asked him why there are so many small ground finches right now, despite the fire last year.