Deb and I flew off of San Cristobal late this morning and arrived safely back on the mainland in Guayaquil, Ecuador late this afternoon. We did have a couple of hours to look around on the island one more time before we left, and we saw plenty of new best friends, but we didn’t see anybody new. Ah, well.
Once we landed in Guayaquil, we made a beeline for the hotel, which is located just a short walk from Parque Lineal Kennedy Norte, a linear park beside a small river, and we were in by 4:20. That gave us almost two hours glorious hours to look around before sunset. Woo hoo!
We saw 17 bird species plus a couple of turtles during our walk, but an easy highlight for me has got to be this magnificent creature, a young great black hawk (Buteogallus urubitinga), which we came across as soon as we walked through the gate. Their range extends from Argentina to Mexico, but in all my travels of South and Central America I have somehow managed to miss seeing one until today. “Thank you, Your Majesty!”
And that’s the show for today, I’m afraid. It’s already 8:15pm, and my flight back to Chicago departs at 4:15 tomorrow morning, so I have got to get into the shower and then into the sack! The rest of the pictures will just have to wait until I get home.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 