Mexico II: Sayulita (290-293)

Wow, time flies! At this rate I'll never keep up with my birding adventures. Life has been a little bit nutty...I've been working my tail off (and let's face it, playing pretty hard too)...but it's time to take a timeout for the birds!

Following our morning jungle birding earlier that day, we walked into town. The surf was not so good in Sayulita when we visited, so we found van to take us out to La Lancha. On the drive over, there was a pond with some birds, and we made the van full of surfers stop so we could take pictures (just in case it was the only time we saw them. i apologized profusely and swore we wouldn't ask them to do it. luckily everyone was pretty chill about it...ha).

When we got there I was a little sad (but not really) that we couldn't take anything at all. La Lancha is guarded and you can only get in if you have a board, and your board is all you are allowed to take with you. So we headed in and I have nary a shot to show for it. Not that the camera would have been useful to me anyway. Sometimes I need something to get the camera out of my hands so I can just see things.

So my highlight of the whole day was actually this: hanging out on my board, waiting for the next set, scanning the scene ahead of me....black rock turning into white beach and coast. A convoy of 10 or so pelicans cruise low along the surface of the water toward the shore...they are a ways down the beach but they approach, hugging the water's surface as they go, until they are right where I am, and one by one, each silently, gracefully, effortlessly lifts directly over me just as we appear to collide. the very last one, I swear, looks me in the eye as he goes. i don't think any camera could capture that, and words barely do either. I think that feeling will stick with me forever. i just sat there in awe and my mouth gaped. this, this is a happy girl. i turned around and said to everyone, I don't care if I get another damn wave. it was all worth it just for that moment.

Luckily this girl has some pictures of La Lancha http://melissa-ajourney.blogspot.ca/2011/03/surf-please.html

It was only a few hours before I was totally wiped, so we tried Sayulita Fish Tacos with our new friend Aryn and we had one thing on our minds: margaritas. Not having eaten all day, and only one rather strong margarita was all it took to put me out of commission. Afterwards, we wandered around town and found a great birding spot (the wastewater treatment centre beside the river) but Matt took all the photos, me still being in my "margarita mindset"). 

This one little area was a hotbed of birds! Just about a block from the beach was a totally different scene, but here we had some really beautiful species that we're just so unused to seeing that it was a real treat.

I love the shots where there are different types of birds together...especially when they are birds I don't normally get to see!

White Ibis, black-necked stilt, snowy egret

 #290: White Ibis; February 2014; Sayulita, Mexico
(I guess we did see the white ibis again after all, but they looked totally different! We never saw the all-white ones again)

There were so many beautiful and interesting birds in such a small area. The snowy egrets were a blast to watch, chasing each other around and hopping over each other, it's easy to laugh when such an elegant bird is being so inconsistently awkward compared to its appearance!

We'd seen the Hawaiian subspecies of the black-necked stilt, but here's the more common variation:

As you can see, the water wasn't looking very clear, but this little blue heron didn't seem to mind. Yuck!

#291: Little Blue Heron,  February 2014; Sayulita, Mexico

Again in BW. I'm not sure which I prefer. I never do this so you can see the colours, but I think this one looks really nice. So strikingly elegant.

It seemed that a lot of birds came to this little spot to roost for the night. The area was taken over by caciques--detected most easily by the total racket they were making, but also the flashes of yellow and black They were incredibly hard to photograph.

Soon we saw a tricolored heron land in a big palm tree across the creek.

#292: Tricolored Heron; February 2014; Sayulita, Mexico

Then a snowy egret came into land. A cormorant also came in, and they didn't seem to mind each other at all.

And then we noticed a little blue also in the same tree, standing silently.

I was just a little bit in awe that there were so many spectacular birds in one tree.
There was also a green heron at the bottom!

Clockwise from bottom left: green heron, double-crested cormorant, snowy egret (circle moved somehow!), tricolored heron, little blue heron, snowy egret. Amazing!

Then, all that was left to do was head toward the beach, enjoy basking in the warm glow of the setting sun, watch some fisherman hand cast nets in the shallows and watch the pelicans dive for fish--my favourite activity and the end of a perfect day. Sayulita, our stay with you was short and sweet, but absolutely wonderful. But we like to move and we have more adventures waiting for us...always!

Mud flat march--Bodega Bay (#273-275)

We headed north out of SF, stopping for a bit in Sausalito, but mostly wanting to get over the coast. The plan was to avoid the 101 at all costs, but we heard from the car ahead of us that a big truck was blocking Highway 1 heading north. Since Hwy 1 is one lane each way with no shoulder, that meant nobody was going anywhere. So I sadly accepted that Point Reyes would not be happening (honestly, we wouldn't have had time to appreciate anyway--ideally you would want a full day there from what I hear). The 101 was slow going to, but we managed to cut over to the coast past the accident. This meant cutting through some farming country.

Red-tailed, I think

There was just a bit of sunlight left by the time we saw water at Bodega Bay...and I'd read somewhere that this was a great spot for birding. We limited ourselves to an hour and set out. It was pretty grey and little foggy--something we got really used later on in Oregon.

This area had a bit of trail before coming to a bridge and then some mud flats beside the trail. The first section was really active with lots of little birds eating seed pods on some plant that I'm not sure what it is. They were quick little things, darting around, making my job as a photographer quite difficult.

#273: Bushtit; Bodega Bay, California; August 2013

While not as numerous as the bushtits, I did see my first black phoebes too.

#274: Black Phoebe; Bodega Bay, California; August 2013

Juvenile black phoebe. Looks similar to American Redstart

In the mud flats we were treated to a few different elegant herons. I immediately though of the Great Egrets we have at home, and these were the same.

However, there were also much smaller white egrets. I was so happy to get a shot of the two of them side by side for comparison! The snowy egret was awesome--it's hard to describe how their feathers move in the air, but they are so graceful and elegant.

Then I got another shot with a Great Blue--the Great Egrets are similar in size.

Great Blues are majestic birds, no matter how many times you see them!

On the way out I spotted another birdie perched in the bush, and so glad I took a closer look. Check out the eyebrows on this guy!

#275: Western Scrub Jay; Bodega Bay, California; August 2013

Hmm. Super dark song sparrow maybe?

Eventually it was getting late and we still had a long way to go that day. Unfortunately it got dark and we missed seeing some of the coast because it was night, but what we saw was so spectacular. Eventually we made it to the Redwood forest where we stayed for the night. The people we stayed with (an amazing couple in their 80s with an awful lot of stories and an off the grid house surrounded by forest and their own garden) had a hummingbird feeder. Matt got up before me (as always) and caught a feeder visitor. Sadly I don't think I saw any of these. Darn it, I need to start getting up earlier! Our host said that only Ana's were around but now that' I'm looking at the book, it really seems to be a Rufous Hummingbird. I don't feel confident contradicting someone who sees them all the time, but I'm pretty certain. Anyone want to confirm?

While the redwoods were wonderful in their own way, they were pretty quiet bird-wise. Or at least we didn't see many. Maybe because the tree tops are soooooooooo high up.

Stay tuned...