We decided to head to Monte Vista in advance of our wwoof placement which starts tomorrow (or today for UK readers). On arriving in this small town (supposedly a City although I have no idea how they differentiate between towns and cities here – this place is small!) to find that the whole place is a rather run down dump of a place, with an appalling Mexican restaurant I hope never to go to again.

However, after paying too much for luke warm fajita’s and far too much for some crappy accommodation we awoke the next morning to discover the area has an outstanding wetland nature preserve. We spent a few hours there in the morning watching incredible White faced Ibis, shovellers, ruddy ducks, marsh wrens (pictured above), yellow headed black birds a northern harrier, mule deer and a coyote and decided to return at sunset to try to spot owls and other birds of prey.

We passed the afternoon with some bowling and a hotel picnic dinner (which we’re getting pretty good at although still feel exacerbated by the waste created). A quick swim in a freezing pool and we got the kids in their pyjama’s for some late evening bird watching (or in Orla’s case Sponge bob watching).

Yummy hotel floor picnic – chicken salad and strawberries!

It paid off – in addition to a couple of muskrats swimming silently through the water we also saw a stunning clarke’s grebe and a Swainson’s Hawk. Although by the time it was dark and we were heading out of the preserve we had yet to see an owl… “Go slow Rob, there’s no one behind” I said in the hope of spotting one on a telegraph pole… and for once he listened! And when I said “stop!”, he actually did! And sure enough there was the owl, perched on a pole. With no one around we watched for a while and then he flew off right past the car. A great sight, but sadly too dark to identify more precisely than as an owl.

When we got back, reeling from our bird watching, I submitted my book to the publishers and it’s a huge weight off before our wwoof placement in the morning – we are sipping champagne now. I’m not sure how much internet connection or laptop juice I’ll have for the next two weeks so if I’m silent that’s why, but I’ll be sure to fill you all in on my return to civilisation after that.

We’ve also just been through the photo’s from today and I seem to have got a setting wrong or something because, bar this reasonable marsh wren, they were all completely rubbish. Although I must admit I prioritised my binoculars today so I didn’t put a lot of effort into the camera and sorting out it’s blur… you’ll just have to look all the above birds up for yourselves I’m afraid.