December 8th - Settling in

Nancy and her morning coffee (honest!) online ID'ing the plethora of birds at our neighbour's feeding station.   She is already planning our feeding station setup.  She was happy to add a White Collared   Seedeater to her life-list this morning.

Our first feeder is up!

Violet Crowned Hummingbird

I think immature Black-chinned but could be immature Ruby-throated

Violet Crowned Hummingbird

We have word in with the park to have the encroaching vegetation out front macheted back a little.  We were reluctant to do so, but the neighbours told us that if we did not, by next year there would be large trees grown up in the way, and it would be much more difficult to cut back (since it's essentially loose rock on a cliff face).  Friends that we caravanned down with, dropped by with a 10 x 10 foot canopy.  They were originally going to loan it to us for the season, but we convinced them to sell it to us.  The trick now will be to figure out a sufficient anchor system, since while there is almost never much of a wind, and even then usually a south wind (we face north-ish), but once in a long while there is; our tremendous views then translate to wind exposure.

Looking back up the hill to the Bigfoot (middle left) from the beach

We did a shopping run into La Peñita this morning, we're groceried up for a few days.
There's a couple of graveyards close to the park, one just on the southwest side of the hill the park is on, and one on north on the east side of the highway.  The reason I'm sharing this tidbit of information is a cultural one.  The local Mexicans feel the need to consistently and at inconvenient hours, repeatedly fire off canons/loud fireworks, reportedly to repel encroaching evil spirits.  There will be twin reports, at 3:09 am Wednesday, for example, or randomly throughout the night.  Kirk disagrees with this practice, and barks to show his displeasure. The locals are fond of these large explosive noises, also firing them off for religious celebrations, holidays, or just because.  Unlike Kirk, Nancy & I have become habituated to the explosions.