ENSENADA ALL DAY – TRAILS TO LA LAGUNA AND THE SALT PANS – A VISIT TO THE JETTY
WEATHER: very hot and sunny, temperatures over 30C all day.
We made an early start in the cool of the morning, a short walk away from the centre of the Lodge found us looking at a roost site for Black-headed Trogons. There must have been 20 of them emerging from the dense foliage of a large tree.
three of the many Black-headed Trogons found in the roost site
There are not many places you can go and see four species of Orioles, but you can here at Ensenada Lodge, we saw: Spot-breasted, Streak-backed, Orchard and Baltimore. A few parrots and parakeets went onto the list with Cinnamon & Ruby Throated Hummingbirds.
Spot-breasted Oriole
We searched for Lesser Ground Cuckoo without success, flycatchers kept us on our guard as we found Kisskadee, Social and Kingbird quite easily and went on to find Great-crested, Brown Crested and Nutting’s Flycatcher. Prothonatory Warbler, Scrub Euphonia and Orange-chinned Parrot were also seen with a few birds of prey.
Hook-billed Kite one three raptors seen in quick succession.
After breakfast we jumped onto the bus and drove back down the approach rack to another trail which led us to La Laguna, a large lake which was covered in birds. But, before we got to the lake we had great views of Hook-billed Kite and Common Black-Hawks as well as White-lored Gnatcatcher and a few more Orioles.
White Ibis flying over the Laguna
At the Laguna we enjoyed views of many ducks, egrets, ibis, herons and waterfowl. We also noted Northern Waterthrush, Southern Lapwing, a few waders new to the list included: Short-billed Dowitcher, Least Sandpiper, Stilt Sandpiper and Lesser Yellowlegs.
male Rose-throated Becard - taken by Chris Perry
We finally arrived back on the main track where we jumped back onto the bus for short trip back to the Lodge with good time to relax before lunch.
After lunch we had some time to kill before meeting up again and several of the group walked down to the shoreline where the old jetty is still standing. We soon had our target bird in the scope, the Surfbird is one of my favourites, a few of them loitered with Ruddy Turnstones.
Least Sandpiper
Scanning the muddy margins along the shore produced more sightings of all the common Herons and egrets and we added Black-bellied Plover, Long-billed Curlew, Whimbrel and few other waders. Brown Pelicans and Magnificent Frigatebirds flew past us with some distant terns.
juvenile Brown Pelican
the 'Old Jetty' - some of you may remember it?
At 3:30pm we drove to the Ensenada Salt Pans. It was all guns blazing at the ‘pans’ hundreds of birds were out there, waders were in nearly every salty-pool.
Ensenada Salt Pans
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron - by Chris Perry
one of three Killdeer seen at the 'pans' - photo by Chris Perry
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron and three Killdeer were found pretty sharpish and we went onto to list another 15 species of waders. Also out there we found several Royal Terns, a couple of Laughing Gulls, some Common Black Hawks and lots of herons and egrets.
a set of tyhree Royal Terns with various waders - by Chris Perry
a Laughing Gull in summer plum. - photo Chris Perry
American Golden Plover - a good find by Jason our leader - taken by Chris Perry
Blak-bellied Plovers with Short-billed Dowitchers
Lesser Yellowlegs with Black-bellied Whistling Duck
It was after 5pm when we called it a day, we missed a couple of species but the variety that we did see was amazing.
Another ‘owl prowl’ led by Rob Parsons, produced three species of nightjar: with Common Pauraque, Lesser Nighthawk and a White-tailed Nightjar, that’s what I call a successful outing!