Early morning on the harbour of Rio Lagartos.
Early in the morning on our second day travelling with Roger and Suzanne, we were on the water by seven as we wanted to get as many photos as possible during out three-hour journey through the saltwater lagoons of the protected biosphere. The cameras were busy before we even left the harbour as we caught a number of beautiful images of white cranes, brown pelicans, white pelicans and magificent frigates. In the photo above, two male magnificent frigate birds are perched on the masts of two boats while a number of brown pelicans are roosting on the rails of one of the boats. In the background you can see the shoreline buildings of Rio Lagartos.
Female Magnificent Frigate
The Magnificent Frigate birds are quite interesting. We see them often by our villa soaring high in the air, gliding swiftly looking huge like hunters in the sky. The female has a white head and throat while the male has a black head with a red throat which can be inflated. Of course this is how he attracts the female. It’s not much different for humans – we men strut around trying to get the attention of the women. This bird on the right could be a Yellow-Crowned Night Heron. If not, someone out there might be able to help me give it a name.
A spoon-billed bird
This beautiful bird on the left, sat so still for me while I took a number of photos of him while Ismael, our guide held the boat fairly still letting us drift closer and closer. The bird on the right is a Bare-throated Tiger Heron. And, he is some strange looking bird. He first appeared normal sitting on the branch. Then he stretched out his neck and looked as if he was only neck. I got quite a few photos of this one and a few other Tiger Herons.
Of course, I took way too many photos to post one of each kind here, so I am only focusing on a few of them, those that I found the most interesting and those with the better focus.For example, this heron which I think is called the Tri-colored Heron. It was hard to get close to him for a decent photograph without him taking off and leaving only a blur in the photo or just a part of the bird. I did get two photos of a Perigrin Falcon, but it was not very close which meant the bird was slightly out of focus in comparison with the trees closer to me which came out in sharp detail. The bird on the right is from the cormorant family I believe. It’s beak is used to spear the fish when the bird is hunting. I will continue to research the birds of Mexico to find out exactly what it is called.
And this strange looking bird is a Boat-Billed Heron. It is usually active only in the night, so getting his photo was a somewhat lucky break.While we were searching out birds in the trees and branches, Ismael was keeping his eyes focused on finding us a crocodile. When he finally spotted one, at some distance, he had us train our cameras to the shore where we saw a few logs floating. Only to discover that one of the logs was a crocodile. We ended up being so close we could have reached over the side of the boat and touched him, not that any of us were actually going to even try. 
Common Black Hawk catching fish for dinner.
Along the way, we also saw four Common Black Hawks. Ismael had us ready to shoot pictures of a hunting hawk before he threw a fish into the lagoon not too distant from our boat. This is the shot I captures, the final photo before tomorrow’s story about flamingos.
The black Hawk picture is amazing as are all the birds but wow what a picture you captured. I love reading about the adventures. The different types of birds are very nice to see. Our bird book would come in handy if you didn’t name them all for us.
If you look again at the photo you will see the small fish that he almost caught. It is behind his right leg in the air.