Dominical: Part 3 - Sea birds and Raptors

The sea was fairly quiet, likely due to the constant offshore breeze. A lot of birds were too far out to identify without my scope with me, but there were a few nice species that came in close. The highlight was seeing Royal Terns fishing in both the estuary and along the beach fishing in the shallow surf. An Elegant Tern also flew past a little further out together with a few Brown Boobies. Magnificent Frigatebirds were almost constantly soaring high overhead with the vultures, and Brown Pelicans performed impressive flybys over the rolling waves. I also lucked into a large flock of c.60+ Wood Storks flying up the coast.

Raptors seen in Dominical included 3+ Roadside Hawks, 10+ Common Black Hawks, a Merlin, huge numbers of Black Vultures roaming the streets like giant gulls, and a pale morph Short-tailed Hawk hovering over near the river. However the highlight came on the bus ride back to San Isidro when two Swallow-tailed Kites flew over.

Royal Tern

Magnificent Frigatebird

Brown Pelicans

Elegant Tern

Wood Storks

Brown Booby

Swallow-tailed Kite - what an incredible looking raptor!

Iguanas were common everywhere, up trees, on rooftops, on the beach.

Burrowing Crab - approach too close and these would scuttle away and disappear down their holes in the sand.

They also feed by filtering through sand, leaving the beach littered by small sand balls.

This otter in the estuary seemed inquisitive, surfacing near me a few times to check me out.

A rather lopsided land crab.

Despite being a tourist destination in the middle of the tourist period, the beach was amazingly empty.

Sunset over the Pacific.