Time out for relaxing

Breakfast on the patio of the hacienda.

Today’s post is all about time spent around the hacienda with Roger and Suzanne.  Before breakfast both Roger and I were busy being “birders”, a new career for me anyway.  What does that mean?  Well, it is basically trying to track as many different birds as possible. 

The hacienda grounds are packed with a number of different speices.  Of course, blackbirds, grackles, flycatchers and kingbirds seemed to be the predominant birds found on the grounds.  That said, some interesting and beautiful birds such as the Green Jay pictured here added a lot of colour to the mix.

We saw and photographed vireos, orioles and other birds which I still haven’t found names for.  The orioles were incredible bright golden orange birds.  Needless to say, I got a lot of photos of these birds.  However, the Mot-mot was the most exotic bird that we found.  This photo doesn’t show it, but it has a long tail that has two feathers with the feathers being nothing but a spine for most of the part with bright blue feathery ends.

Another area of the grounds was set aside for growing fodder for the horses.  This photo shows the plant and one of the hacienda workers busy chopping down some fresh fodder for the horses.  Since labour is cheap and machinery is expensive, harvesting the fodder is done as it has been done for centuries. 

With breakfast finished and plans made for the day, we then set off for Izamal where we would discover more about the early Spanish presence in Mexico.

Of course, I do have to put in one more photo as my good wife feels that you should know that I was there as well.