Well, first thing we went birding at the nearby Spanish Lagoon, and met Armando, who happens to be a professional birder and artist. After looking at the pair of owls, he offered to show us where the humming birds would be. We told him about seeing the when we were at La Cabana about birding here, and he admitted he was the guide featured! How fun. Evidently, at the base of the old Gold Mine, up hill from the owls, are cacti in bloom attracting both the and emerald humming birds. David did well but wants to return earlier tomorrow to catch the best light. It was a very lucky meeting because also Armando told us where to find an entire family of Burrowing Owls. Actually today was a THREE NEW BIRD DAY: the emerald humming bird, yellow oriole, and grassquit!
But first, we were off for our usual morning drift snorkel at Mangel Halto. David drops me at the start, takes the car back about 400 yards to the end, and walks back. Except the car wouldnt start! While
waiting for the Emergency vehicle, we saw our friendly family from the past 2 days, however, and I was able to point out exactly where they should go. We drove to the car rental place just in case it would stop again, and found out that the heat severely shortens the life of the batteries. They replaced it and off we went home for a 20 minute dip in this lovely little pool.
We had arranged to meet friend Linda Schwengel at Zeerover, but we knew she wouldnt want to eat lunch there. We went off to another famous place, ONeils in San Nicolaas. Fish of course, and shrimp.
Linda has had quite a sad 2 years, losing 16 people to Covid, including one friend just last night. Evidently some cases are sent to Colombia. Linda has told her children – whatever you do, dont let them send me there. Covid has really changed some aspects life – people dont just stop by someones house to chat. Of course thats not happened in the US for ages.
mins towards the hotel area to find the family of burrowing owls. We went the back ways, which was fascinating! Many back roads are still dirt, and they arent marked any differently on the map (or googlemaps) than the paved one. It was hard to not stay there overnight, the owls were so adorable. There were 2 parents and FIVE babies!!! They were more or less the same size - but the babies were fluffier and didt have any markings on the belly. We could here their sounds, very soft krkrkrkrkrk. David would hold out his huge heavy lens for minutes, waiting for movement, blink, and miss the dash or the short flight. We didnt see any hunting behavior.
We had bought a bit of amberjack at Zeerovers, and that was our dinner, which we ate outdoors by candlelight.
