Birding at Pablo's.

We started out early with our birder friend Mike and went looking for Pablo who comes by selling eggs.  Pablo is not a Mexican, though he is fluent in Spanish.  He moved here with his German wife about eight years ago from the USA and is homesteading about five kilometers into the “jungle”.   We call it jungle but technically it is really thick tropical forest.  The only way to keep an area free of plants is to constantly pull them up and keep your machete swinging.  We were hopping to see the beautiful Mot-mot birds and photograph them.  We did get some quick views of Mot-mots but no photos.  Luckily we finally did see the elusive beautiful blue Bunting which Reed has wanted to see for for three seasons.  All in all it was a wonderfully interesting day and Pablo took us all through his property looking for birds and seeing his neighbors cenote.  

Three Turkey Vultures gracefully sunned themselves in the early morning sun

Walking through this cleared area was very easy compared to the narrow trails we mainly hiked through.  Pablo carried his machete to make the walking easier as vines continually wrapped around ones ankle.

Pablo's well looked like a small cenote and we saw many holes like this one and ones much smaller as we carefully made our way through his property. 

We heard bees and saw this old bee hive in a flowering tree also frequented by many birds. 

A masked Tityra  we saw high on a tree.

The cenote on Pablo's neighbors property was a collapsed cave leaving a circle of caves about  200 feet in diameter.   Pablo's dogs were having a great time romping in the water as we watched large bats fly in and out of the cave. 

This part of the cave had old walls built out of rocks and pottery chards. 

There were many beautiful butterflies but most were  impossible to photograph.  We were able to see the beautiful  Blue Morpheus butterfly.