Birds on Los Roques
29 June 2010 | Cayo de Agua
Devi
The birding is terrific. There are several sea birds that nest on the island as well as many birds passing through. Some of the nesters are: bridled terns, brown noddys, brown boobys and laughing gulls. The least terns, black crowned night herons, green herons and several other shore birds may well be nesting but we did not find their nests or chicks. The laughing gulls dominate the island and immediately check you out as you make your entry into the anchorage. They make periodic stops on the boat and dingy and are shameless about asking for scraps (which we do not toss to them). There are 12 pink flamingos on a nearby coral island. We have not seen where they go to roost at night, but the coral island appears to provide them with a good source of food. This is a photo of a bridled tern.
Chuck took the really good photos of birds and you can see them on Tusen Takk II travel logs: http://www.tusentakk2.com/
The water is turquoise and the snorkeling is quite good. The fish are so bright and large. The entire group of Los Roques is a national park and there is some degree of protection for the fish. You cannot use a spear gun and you have to get a permit to use a rod and reel, so you can only easily use a hand line and there is no commercial fishing allowed (though it clearly does occur). The snorkeling has been very good. We have seen huge parrot fish- the largest we have ever seen. One day Barb and I were out snorkeling and we saw rainbow parrot fish that seemed huge- as large as our fins. We each took off a fin and slowly swam up to the fish and indeed they were fin sized