Birds of Loreto

There are so many birds around Loreto. Some are easier than others to get photos of! 

The brown pelicans are so fun to watch as they dive bomb into the water to catch fish. But trying to get video of them is an almost impossible task. I'm usually either too fast or too slow with the camera following them down as they hit the water, or they dive on the opposite side of the dock from where I am. But!!! On our last day in Loreto, we had some time to wander and I think I got finally got a good video of it! We'll see. In the meantime . . . 

The local gathering spot

Snowy egret (differentiated from the great egret by its yellow feet)

Great Egret

Cormorant

Not the greatest photo but it shows off some fishing skills.

Green heron (see Andrew's post - link below - for much better photo)

Blue footed booby

A pretty house finch

This heron was in the same spot each morning that we got out for an early morning run.

Also a couple herons around the marina on our last morning there.

Sea gulls everywhere! 

See Andrew's Loreto Birds post. Much better photos and more types of birds! 

 

Island Scenes Around Loreto

Our days start early at the dive shop. We have been coming to Loreto, and Dolpin Dive, since 2005 and this is (we think!) our sixth time here. Needless to say, we love it! Between the diving, the local divemasters, and the laid back, small-town feel of the town, we will no doubt continue to come back. 

Coronado Island is the closest island and therefore, where the majority of the diving is done. It's also where the sea lions live, always on this one rock outcropping on the east side of the island. It's fun to dive here as they are often playful and come to visit us under water. But above water, they are very stinky so we always hope the wind is going the right direction when we're there. 

I found this photo humorous with the sleepy sea lion being watched over
by the attentive birds.

There are some very cool rock formations.

Can you see the blue footed boobies?

A closer view

The rock in the middle is called Monkey Face Rock (for obvious reasons). The small one on the left, to me, looks like a penguin or a meerkat. 

Happy to be heading to Danzante Island.
It's further away so they usually only go when the water is very, very calm.

Carmen Island is largest of the islands near Loreto. We don't often make it to the far east side but there's lots of interesting things there such as an old salt mine and big horn sheep. Unfortunately, a google search of the sheep produced nothing but articles about hunting them!

This beach on Carmen Island is where we camped while on a kayak trip we went on several years ago.

We found lots of beautiful shells on the beach.

Always on the lookout for something interesting to take photos of.

Santa Barbara Botanical Garden

After a long morning at the zoo, we still decided to head to the Botanical Garden. There weren't a lot of flowers this late in the very hot season but the trails were nice and Andrew found lots of lizards to photograph. 

Through the redwoods

Very typical . . . me waiting for Andrew to take photos!

Cutie!

A little free library and sitting area.

Santa Barbara Zoo

The Santa Barbara Zoo is one our most favourite zoos and we stop here at least once every time we're in the area. It's small but very well laid out and has a few animals that you don't often see elsewhere. We always buy a membership which allows us to enter an hour before the general public. It's so nice to view the animals without dodging around too many other people. However, we did spend three hours there so got a bit of both!

As you can see from most of these photos, I really like getting "facial" views of the animals rather than the whole animal. I think it's much more interesting sometimes. 

It was hard to get any decent photos of these very quick moving otters! Although by the time we left the zoo, they'd tired themselves out and were sleeping all huddled together in a corner. 

The penguins were also difficult to photo due to rapid movements! 

I love how the zoo tags all the penguins with their name. There used to be a penguin named "Lucky" who had a damaged foot. The shoe company Teva made a sandal for him so he could walk better. Sadly, it seems like Lucky is no longer around.

This poison dart frog was plastered to the glass of his habitat which I thought looked humorous. 

The wallabies are a new addition to the zoo and you could walk through the area they were in so it was much nicer and easier to take photos. They are in the area that the elephants used to be in as both elephants have died of old age.

Also new to the zoo since we'd last been there are two very cute foxes from the Channel Islands. They were rescued as babies after their mother had been killed.

It doesn't seem like very many zoos have condors but the Santa Barbara Zoo is well known for them. 

Meerkats . . . so funny looking! They make me laugh every time!

Guess who! 

So tired! :-)

Pretty colors!