I've never had the patience to sit and look for birds--couldn't see it, literally.

But today was such fun all because tall Bob could spot a flea on a knat's ass. He found the tricky ones (ones totally obliterated by branches and leaves) and knew the names of everything. All I had to do was point and shoot.

We took the jungle river cruise just south of San Blas--up a little river to the spring at it's beginning. It winds through mangrove swamps and fern forests and is a protected habitat surrounded on both sides by fields of corn or sorghum or whatever else they're growing down here. But this little windy stretch is a haven for a really wide variety of birds. 

It was like magic seeing them through thick tree branches or sunning themselves under the bright Mexican sky.