Xian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve

   This is our last day in the Yucatan and it is raining. We took off and drove 3 miles down a wet and bumpy gravel road to the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve. This is a very large wilderness area right along the coast, with miles of very remote, uninhabited Caribbean beaches. Sian Ka'an is Mayan for "Where the Sky is Born". The Reserve is a great resource for bird watchers. The rain kept us inside the car.

   We turned toward Punta Allen, a Mayan fishing village inside the Reserve. There were massive mangrove swamps, which beckoned to the fisherman inside us everyone. We ate lunch at one of the cute little restaurants along the beachfront. There is a dock on the lagoon with a thatched palm palapa roof. From this dock, we saw an Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) in her nest, but we did not see any baby Osprey. Additionally we saw both the Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus) and Ladder Backed Woodpecker (Picoides scalaris).

   Exhausted, we drove to Cancun where we will finish our vacation. We ate dinner in a nice restaurant, then found a hotel room, close to the airport. We slowly packed all of our birding gear, birding books, dirty clothes, and several souvenirs in preparation for tomorrow's flight back to the States.

Robert and Berry

photo courtesy of wikipedia