Having cruised the Baja a bit over three months this season, and with three digital cameras on board, you can imagine we've accumulated a stack of wildlife photos. We've pruned the pixels to bring you some of what we think are the highlights.
Setting out with the intention of capturing a particular shot of an animal doesn't work for us; life seems just too unpredictable. Rather most of these photos are just us being lucky to be in that spot at the right time (and taking lots of pictures).
Ospreys are one of our favourite Baja birds. Many species frequently perch atop the tall cardón cactuses, which makes them easy to spot. This one was hanging on in a pretty brisk breeze.
A rather intimidating gaze.
Dawn is a good time to catch the vultures - their "morning coffee" consists of sitting facing the rising sun, with wings spread to soak up some heat. Later, once the thermal breezes start, they take to the skies.
A meeting of vultures. We converted this one to grayscale as it seemed appropriately creepy.
Much cuter than the vultures, we loved the red highlights of this bird (a sparrow?)
We don't often see the bigger, tastier fish (they are too skittish from being hunted), but Barb spotted this Barred Pargo (approx 40 cm long) tucked under an overhang.
Turtles are also a rarity for us. Luckily this one was dozing under a rock, so we were able to approach closely.
Sandy bottoms are popular with Cortez Garden Eels. This one's poking slightly out of its hole while a Graybar Grunt passes by.
To catch the Garden Eels coming out farther, the camera was set to snap timelapse photos every few seconds. After I left the area, the eels were willing to come out and wave about in the current. Then the trick was to find the camera again...
We were dinghying back from a snorkel session, when we spied this Banded Lizardfish swimming at the surface, poking its nose out of the water, and peering about.
Unfortunately for the Lizardfish, we weren't the only ones who spied it. You can see, reflected in the water, the seagull swooping in. Less than a second later the gull had snagged the fish in its mouth and left the scene. We felt bad for calling attention to the fish...
This Spotted Eagle Ray surprised us just before we were going to call it quits on the snorkelling session. Click here for a short video (filesize 8 MB).
And we were really overjoyed when four more of them showed up!
Whale sightings are always great, even from a distance (as this one was). The humpback definitely outweighs the small launch.
From our anchorage we watched this humpback breaching numerous times over about 20 minutes.
An enormous amount of whale coming out of the water!
Almost as impressive is the splash from the whale droping back into the water.
We admire Frigate birds for their supreme flying skills: they remain airborn over the ocean for hours without flapping their wings, and they can pluck a fish out of the sea (as this one has) with their beaks without getting any other body part wet.
Our solar panels make great landing strips - here the view is being enjoyed by a Brown-footed Boobie.
In which each animal ponders the other and Barb resists the temptation to tickle the visitor's toes.
Ever wonder how a Hermit Crab fits into its shell?
Amazingly well!
Grebes are great to watch for their magic disappearing act! Click on the image to view the video (it's about 14 MB).