Baja California Sur

Sea Shepherd & Cuvier’s Beaked Whales

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It has been a long while since our last link to Sea Shepherd news, shame on us, but today we rectify it with news from Seth and Jocelyn’s neighborhood–actually on the Pacific side of Mexico’s Baja California Sur but as close as most people get:

Sea Shepherd Records Never Before Seen Footage of Rare Cuvier’s Beaked Whales During Expedition in Mexico

Sea Shepherd’s research vessel the R/V Martin Sheen returned to Mexico’s Guadalupe Island to continue its study of Cuvier’s beaked whales, capturing never before seen drone footage of these rare and elusive cetaceans.

During the two-week expedition, Mexican lead-scientist Gustavo Cardenas Hinojosa and American collaborator Jenny Trickey, deployed various acoustic devices to compare their effectiveness. The scientists will return and leave these devices for a longer period of time. Continue reading →

Baja Desert Birds

/ Seth Inman / Leave a comment

As I approach my 100th checklist submitted to the Villa del Faro eBird hotspot, I’ve been putting together video compilations of footage taken over the last seven months here. The one in this post happens to be about birds, and most of them are, but I’ll also be sharing some whale breaches, ray jumps, and non-avian desert animal behavior. In the video below you can see two Greater Roadrunners (filmed months apart), a California Quail, and a Gray Thrasher (endemic to the Baja Peninsula) recorded at or ten minutes from Villa del Faro.

Make sure you have the volume up for the Greater Roadrunner section in particular, as the first individual engages in some interesting bill-clacks, and the second one was vocalizing in a low toot that I’ve only heard the one time so far, but seems to be a mating call.

Continue reading →

Snorkeling with Whale Sharks in La Paz

/ Seth Inman / Leave a comment

Last week, Jocelyn and I took the three-hour drive from Villa del Faro to La Paz, the capital of Baja California Sur. After about seventy minutes on the dirt coastal road that runs along the East Cape, one reaches the asphalt road near La Ribera, which connects to Mexico’s Route 1, a well-paved highway that runs from San José del Cabo all the way north to Tijuana (1,654km away). Before heading anywhere near that far, however, we turned off at the La Paz exit, to explore the port city home to over 200,000 people.

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If you look at a map of the geography surrounding La Paz, you can see that it is quite sheltered from the ocean, with a chunk of land protecting it on the east side, a thin strip closing in from the west, and a long bay running to the north, all this in the relatively calmer Gulf of California. In 1535 the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés tried to start a colony in the area, but it wasn’t fully settled till over sixty years later.

Today, the main tourist attractions to La Paz are marine in nature, Continue reading →

Sardine Disco Balls, Or Cabo Pulmo

/ Crist Inman / Leave a comment
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A free diver swooping into a sardine ball. Keith Sepe

Joanna Klein’s story in the Science section of the New York Times this week, titled Swimming With the Mysterious Sardine Disco Balls of the Philippines, has had me thinking in recent days about the Gulf of California, and specifically about Villa del Faro. If you have reason to be in the Philippines, click the image above to get a quick view of what may be in store for a diver in certain waters.

But otherwise, I will riff off that photo in the direction of Baja California Sur. The intensity of those sardine schools are comparable to the biodiversity in the waters of Cabo Pulmo. Continue reading →

The Gulf Of California In Front Of Villa Del Faro

/ Crist Inman / Leave a comment

vdfregatta

Seth sent a snapshot he quickly took on his phone yesterday late morning at Villa del Faro. He had already told me the day before that they were seeing whales in the same vicinity of where the boats are in this photo, but he had not had his phone handy to snap a picture. So this would have to do. It looked as though a regatta was passing by. Continue reading →

Villa Del Faro Morning Walk

/ Crist Inman / Leave a comment

vdfwalk1This post from yesterday reminds me of an early morning walk I took a few days ago with Seth and Jocelyn, when these two donkeys came wandering down the road. One seemed determined to get his head and shoulders portrait in the best possible light.

So I indulged him, and both seemed happy with a bit of nose-petting. No carrots, but never mind. When we continued our walk they started to follow, but then, nope. They wandered off in the opposite direction.

vdfwalk2Donkeys do that. A walk at dawn is the best way to know a place–at its quietest, and as per donkey logic, in the best possible light. I had arrived at Villa del Faro after a visit at Chan Chich Lodge, where dawn greets you with howler monkeys howling, and on a walk you will definitely hear a symphony of birdsong. At Villa del Faro you will hear birdsong, but different; at most it will be chamber music, more likely solos and duets. Continue reading →