Check out my last post for an introduction to this series and to read about the Sierra de la Laguna.

At three hours away from Villa del Faro, the town of Todos Santos is a bit of a stretch for a day trip, but could be accomplished by a determined driver or could be an addition to a stay here on the East Cape. Todos Santos is a very pleasant town on the Pacific coast of the southern Baja Peninsula, and two spots in particular are relatively well-visited by birders in the region: a little wetland area right by the beach at the southern edge of town called La Poza de Todos Santos (poza meaning “pool” or “puddle”) and a hotel associated with the spot called Hotel Posada la Poza (posada meaning “inn” or “lodge”).

When I walked around the neighborhood of the hotel in question, I saw very few birds and a couple thousands gnats, which fought with several dozen mosquitos to land on any exposed skin. After half an hour of wandering around and not finding any sort of pond or lagoon, I abandoned the effort to go further south to Playa Las Palmas de San Pedro, which I knew from the day prior was more easily fruitful. Looking at a map more closely after the fact, however, I realize that I was actually just a tad too far north to see the Poza, since I was constricted by fences in the spot where I parked and headed in the wrong direction. I can’t tell whether one needs to be on the hotel property to reach the best spot, but on eBird the hotel hotspot has far more species than the natural landmark hotspot does.

From Todos Santos, a ten minute drive south will take you to the “exit” for Playa Las Palmas, which Jocelyn described in her post earlier this month. Ten more minutes on a rough dirt road will lead to a parking area where you can walk to the beach and from there to the “oasis” mentioned in the area’s eBird hotspot, which was less gnatty and more birdy than my first stop of the morning. Here we saw the endemic Belding’s Yellowthroat, as well as the migrant Yellow-breasted Chat, a large warbler which I hadn’t seen before. But in apart from the reed- and lagoon-dwelling birds, a great part of Playa Las Palmas is the view from the southern hillside (see the third picture in Jocelyn’s post for a different angle) and the calmness of the sandy beach.