Las Gallinas June 2008

This is a place that both Karen and I have been looking at for a long time. It has a lot of positive reviews on the ease of the walk and the wild life that can be found there, however, it is also a sewage treatment plant. It is very noticeable when you get there as you park next to the facility and all through the walk there are signs that remind you of where you are. OK - putting that aside, this place was fantastic. I'm amazed at the variety of birds that we saw. I'm also really impressed with the stag as it is on an island - obviously it decided to swim over clearly demonstrating that the grass is greener on the island as well as on the other side of the fence. The other thing I'm really pleased with is the vulture. I saw a couple of the vultures come down and walked off on my own to see if I could get close to them, which I managed to do .... ugly things really when you get close to them.

The surprise picture goes to the black-crowned night-heron. This little baby was hiding under the bushes at the edge of the water. What's strange is that you couldn't see it with your naked eyes - all I saw was a white ball and the two legs in the water. I thought it was something different so took a couple of pictures. It was only when I got home that I actually saw clearly what it was. The full list of birds is:

American White Pelican
Cinnamon Teal
Black-Necked Stilt
Savannah Sparrow
Giant Egret
Mallard*
Canada Goose
Black-Crowned Night-Heron
Great Blue Heron
Tree Swallow
Turkey Vulture
American Goldfinch
American Crow
Killdeer

* I thought I'd pictured more varieties of ducks, but after doing a little research on the wonderful Internet, it appears that our friend the mallard doesn't keep his dangly bit tucked up under his feathers. Apparently the mallard is somewhat liberal and has cross bred with a number of other ducks so I think these birds are mallard hybrids. You'll see that they have very black heads rather than the shiny green of a traditional mallard.

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