2/19/26 Bird Tour

 We went to bed early last night as we were all pretty tired.  It took a bit to get used to the sounds of people soccer, barking dogs and crowing roosters. We got up early to shower and have a small breakfast before Luis picked us up for our birding tour.  We started at the end of town on the beach and saw a number of birds.  We saw blue winged teal, anhinga, neo-tropic cormorant, least grebe, brown pelican, blue-footed boobie, American coot, northern jacana, snowy and great egrets, yellow and black crowned night herons, black necked stilt, Heermann's gulls,  cinnamon teal, willet, spotted sandpiper, killdeer, laughing gulls, turkey vultures, common black hawk, great tailed grackle, Sinaloa crow, We drove over to the jungle path near the Polo club where we had a delicious brunch of waffles, fresh pastries, cut fruit, and eggs at the open air restaurant.  We saw on our walk orange fronted parakeet, Mexican parrotlet, black throated magpie jay, street backed orioles, yellow winged cacique, golden vireo, thick billed king bird, social fly catcher, great kiskadee, blue gray gnat catcher, ruffed winged swallow, squirrel cuckoo, masked tityra.  We took a side path and found a place called a Fairy Garden mostly small stone sculptures that are hidden in the glade.  Luis was a font of knowledge.  One of the most interesting stories was about the cycle of three birds:  the orange fronted parakeet carves out a hole in a termite nest to raise their young.  When the young fledge and leave the nest, it is taken over by the Citreoline trogon who raises a family.  When they leave the nest is is taken over by the elegant trogan.  It is a time share system in which each pair of birds raises their family in 3 months and then the next pair take over the nest.  Very cool!  We came back to the house after our 5 hour adventure and Dave went for his nap and the rest of us read by the pool.  I took a dip first as I was hot from the jungle walk.  While we were in the living room a golden cheeked woodpecker landed on the tree just off the balcony.  We will go for an early dinner tonight and hopefully be awake enough to play cards.

2/18/2026 San Pancho, Mexico

After a long day of flying we finally made it to Puerto Vallarta airport on the west coast of Mexico.  The airport here was an adventure in itself - a long line to go through passport control and then another to go through customs.  We met Russ and Cathie outside the terminal and found our driver.  We stopped at a large grocery store which was accessed by an escalator (more of a rolling sidewalk).  We picked up supplies for breakfast and lunch and then drove on another 45 minutes to the small town of San Pablo.  Russ's son Tristan and family own a house up on a hill over the town.  Very nice!  Will take some pics tomorrow.  The funny thing is that the driver could not get his car up the hill to the house so Russ walked up and got the golf cart so we could get the groceries and then the luggage in two trips.  We went into town for dinner and ate at a place called Barracuda.  The food was excellent - I had a shrimp taco and the others had mahi mahi tacos plus Russ had a shrimp burrito (he brought half of it home for lunch tomorrow.  We are all pretty tired so will forgo cards tonight.