whale talker

A few things I wanted to share along with some pictures. I have been waiting to get a shot of one of my favorite reptiles, The Desert Iguana, and I got my chance this morning. I had come in from doing my laps in The Sea and was lounging under my palapa reading when I caught some movement nearby. A closer look with the binocs showed it to be one of these iguanas. I watched as he moved over to my Hibiscus plant and then proceeded to chow down on the blossoms. This was just like my Spiny Tailed Iguana and the Yuca Vine blossoms the other day. The "Reptile People" are back! Of course they are eating all my blossoms but that's what they like and I love having them in my space, or should I say I love being in their space.

The other thing has to do with a strange ant behavior I observed yesterday (no pictures). I had placed a recently swatted fly (my most hated creature on the planet.....excluding some ignorant and evil people) on the ground to watch the ants make use of this good sized morsel. Three of them began dismembering the fly and worked cooperatively and diligently. Then along comes a 4th ant (same species, size etc) and immediately gets into this violent wrestling match with one of the original three. I mean a tussle! At times they broke apart and then with renewed vigor began again. Rolling, thrashing....the works. I couldn't help but think, "these two really have a personal grudge". Of course that can't be in the insect world....personal grudge, no way. Well they kept at this for a few minutes while two more ants joined in the cooperative dismembering without taking notice of this wild melee taking place right next to them. Finally the two broke up and then proceeded to find a place to help out, knocking into each other occasionally but no more tussle. Very strange!

Having thought that the great dragonfly migration was over, I woke this morning (Friday) to yet another mass exodus. Same species as far as I can tell and again no alighting anywhere. This time I counted an average of 55-60/min....extraordinaire. To think of the numbers that have passed in the last few weeks truly "staggers the imagination" if one really thinks on it.

You can probably sense, and appreciate, the real delight I am having in being free to simply enjoy and examine the nature around me. Baja is a distinctly different, biodiverse and magical expression of the life force. Now all those classes in Ornithology, Mammalogy, Zoology, Herpetology etc are paying off; even with the occasional sting of a Scorpion or Agua Mala. I am being very careful on both counts. I always shake out my shorts, shoes, towels for scorpions because I have had them in all these places (no stings though), the one sting was while making up my outside bed....way worse than a Yellow Jacket I assure you! I also wear a scarf over my head and a light long sleeved shirt when doing my laps. Agua Mala stings are right up there on the pain scale. I had a bad one a few weeks back and do all I can to prevent a reoccurrence of that particular experience.

We also had quite a blow here last night. Around 1:00 am a major thunderstorm struck really fast out of nowhere. Wind gusts got up to 80 mph and we received a fair amount of rain. The locals call them picito-Chubascos (mini-hurricanes). They blow through in a hour or so but are only 1/2 the strength of a full on Chubasco! I've got some rockin' and rollin' coming.