Celestun Flamingos

Oh hi! While being well and truly embedded in the city of Merida, the opportunity of another boat trip arose, this time to see some flamingos! Yay! So we packed our stuff up for the day (leaving the wheel chair behind) and took an organised tour (boo) to Celestun. The coach trip was thoroughly narrated by our guide, a bit too well narrated infact (ala John Smith). Wij fell asleep immediately and I ended up putting some ear plugs in to tone down the volume. We passed several traditional Mayan villages where the houses are constructed out of wattle and dorb, with a palm thatched roof.


We arrived at the Reserva de la Biosfera Ria Celestun's 519 sq Km estuary. Here there are a huge migratory colony of pink Flamingos and many other kinds of throughly dowdy waterfowl. We boarded a similar boat to the one we travelled in at Canon el Sunidero, but this time with only six people, sadly our tour guide was one of them, but luckily when the boat got going - (it was a full throttle Mexican style boat trip), it was so fast it took your breath away and even he couldn't talk!

We hurtled down the estuary, flying past the Mangroves, the water was a sandy colour and we were told that a big storm that week had really churned the water up. It looked great against the blue sky and reminded me of the sky reflected in the wet sand in the Scilly Isles. Norrmally, apparently, the water is quite clear, however this made for a beautiful colour combination.

The estuary is a protected fauna shelter of low deciduous forest and tropical plants. The mangroves that line the shore of the estuary protect the land from storm surges caused by tropical storms. The Mangroves buffer the land at the waters edge and prevent erosion.

As we got further out and the estuary became wider, we could see a pink line under the green Mangroves. As we got closer the size of the flamingo colony was apparent...it was huge. The driver turned the engine off and we coasted towards them... they sounded like geese, it looked very surreal, they are such strange birds!


The Caribbean flamingos (pink flamingos) come to Celestun to nest and are here between March and September and are the only flamingo colony in North America.


They looked very strange when in flight.




This was as close as we got.


The colony of flamingo's in the distance appear as a thin pink line under the green of the mangroves.


Capturing the vast open space. When we were't hurtling along, it was very chilled.


Young pelicans perching in trees, learning how to fly.


Cormorants, canadian geese, egrets, sand pipers, herons...


A pelican in flight.




Just as we were relaxing and marvelling at the variety of birds and the boat engine was gently idling away, our driver cranked it up and drove us at full pelt towards the mangroves... and straight into a mangrove tunnel. We really did wonder what was going to happen! He then turned the engine off and we drifted through a mangrove tunnel of dappled light. Cheers drive!




A termite nest. We could see the thin ribbons of mud winding up the tree towards the nest.






We stopped at a jetty inside the mangroves to see the petrified forest. The water was teeming with fish of different sizes. There was a frest water spring under this area, making the water very cold. It really sparkled.


Looking back towards the jetty with the mangrove roots hanging down.


Wiji waiting in the boat with a dry pegar.