The Not-so-rare Great Kiskadee

 (Léase en español / Read in Spanish)

The thing about birds is that what may appear exotic and rare depends on your perspective. We spent a morning in Coimata, just 20 minutes from Tarija by vehicle. The area has plant covered cliffs and beautiful cascading falls. We enjoyed seeing the native flora and fauna up close. Then, as we are leaving the park, we hear a loud, unusual bird call. We look around quickly and finally spot a large bird in a tree. Due to the distance and the shaded light only one shot came out good enough to see details. Here’s what we got.

The bird in the center has his back to us and head turned to the right. We were really excited about this rare sighting and when we got home we carefully examined

The Monthly Mystery Macro misterioso del mes

Cada mes ponemos un reto de macro misterioso. He aquí el reto de noviembre:

Each month we post a mystery macro challenge. Here is the one for November:

El cactus sonriente

 (Read in English / Léase en inglés)

Recién disfrutamos de algo muy especial. Observamos la salida del sol desde la Isla del Pescado en el Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia. No hay agua en ningún parte, sino está rodeada por un ‘mar’ de sal. El Salar de Uyuni es el salar más grande del mundo, con más de 10.000 kilómetros cuadrados. ¿Y cuál cosa se ve en todas partes de la Isla del Pescado? Ni idea tengo sobre de donde viene su nombre porque no hay pez ni pescado en la isla. La respuesta tiene que ver con el macro misterioso del mes.

Abajo está la foto complete de la cual se sacó el macro misterioso. (Y para que sepa, si hace clic en esta o en cualquier foto del blog, se ve de tamaño natural.)

¿Todavía no sabe? La siguiente foto muestra un punto de referencia sobre el tamaño del objeto.

The Smiling Cactus

 (Léase en español / Read in Spanish)

Recently we enjoyed a rare treat. We watched the sunrise from Fish Island, in the great Bolivian Salt Flats of Uyuni. There is no water around for miles, but it is surrounded by a ‘sea’ of salt. The ‘Salar de Uyuni’ is the world’s largest salt flat covering over 10,000 sq. km. (4,000 square miles). And what is the predominant thing to be seen on Fish Island? I’m not actually sure why it is even called Fish Island because the answer is not fish. The answer is about this month’s mystery macro.

Below is the entire photo from which the mystery macro was cropped (by the way, as with any photo in this blog, if you click on it it grows to full size):

Still not clear? This next pictures gives some perspective on the actual size:

The Squirrel Bunny?

 (Léase en español / Read in Spanish) 

There is an animal in this picture. Can you see it?

You saw it? Well, just in case, here’s a close up of the same view: