All Our Yesterday's Part One

 Something of a watered down epitstle compared to the likes of the Madagascar Triolgy but a few things that caught the eye when grappling through the archive for inspiration! The 2 week organised Birds / Wildlife trip to

VENEZUELA

in 2009 proved to be one of the best yet, although our adventures were usually solo the highlights being the finding of only the second known nest site in that regeon of the amazing

DUSKY STARFRONTLET

and given the distrbution map, Venezuela not even on there, for

FORSTERS TERN
a very rare bird for the country

in general.
A long way to go for just 2 weeks and with still 3 weeks before returning to the Buchan Alpha Oil Rig a spur of the moment decission was made to extend the tour and in the first instance flying to Quito

ECUADOR
and then on no more than yet another whim caught a bus to sea-side town of Salinas for a short stay and fell immediately into the company of

BENITO HAAS
ex-Dutch pat, Wildlife enthusiast and owner of a Whale Museum, yes a Whale Museum.
En-route to his establishment the mile after mile of

SALTPANS
after which the town is named followed by

HUMPBACKED WHALE

MELLON-HEADED WHALE

SMALL WHALE SCULLs

another
HUMPBACKED WHALE

PYGMY KILLER WHALE
to show but a few, but it was the following morning when the real 'excitement' broke as between us we spotted a large, all while Gull

which with a few 'half decent' images

we concluded was a

GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL

which was accepted by the Powers that Be and the First and Only Gull
of the kind for the country!
With the weather being as it is we may have to post a Part II to this magical adventure tomorrow, but we shall see?

ISLA de la PLATA
"it ain't half hot mum"!!