U3A News – At their September meeting Callington U3A were taken on a magical trip to the Galapagos Islands by Ian Casper, a retired teacher from Tavistock, who achieved a lifetime ambition visiting the archipelago. Through pictures he spoke of the differing landscapes, volcanic rock, forestation, plains, shorelines, emerald coves and mangrove lagoons. Ian showed examples of the endemic animals like the inquisitive sea lions who welcome visitors, the gentle endangered Marine Iguana the only lizard that swim and feed from the sea. Roaming the shoreline are the prehistoric looking Land Iguanas, the popular giant tortoise, remember Lonesome George, and the delightfully named crab Sally Lightfoot. He went on to explain the many species of birds, the red and blue footed boobies, the Great Frigate and flightless Cormorant that have developed skills to swim instead of fly. There are 14 species of finch. One Finch breed lives alongside the tortoise eradicating annoying insects from them. The tortoise support this toilette by raising their legs to help the procedure! Amazing flora and fauna grow on the equatorial islands. Ferns and trees, a cactus that grows on lava and mangrove seeds that floated to the islands and grew into large vegetation lagoons. This brief tour of the Galapagos was extremely interesting thanks to Ian Casper. Maybe one day some of us can make the dream come true.
Next months U3A meeting is Monday Oct 1st 10:45am start at the TOWN HALL, Callington
and will be an illustrated talk about Kit Hill Country Park, it’s history, geology and more.
Kit hill is the highest point in the Tamar Valley and has 400 acres of heathland and is part of the Cornish Mining World Heritage site.