Let's take a walk at the beach

My brother and I were born and raised in a seaside town in Wales. Needing to be near the ocean and smell the sea air has always been a part of our makeup. My brother, when he was away from the coast for any length of time, would return to it saying he "needed to get some ozone". Greg always quotes him, when we're near the ocean. While Greg and I are here in Lo de Marcos, I'll enjoy a daily walk at the nearby beach. I love both the sights and the sound of the ocean; looking out at the various shades of blue and green, and hearing the crashing of the waves. So yesterday, I took in the usual sights and sounds.

I like this photo because it shows the shadow of the palm in the sand. A different perspective of a palm, instead of looking up at them, as I usually do. As usual, I was looking out to the water.

The tide level affects the water flow near where the river meets the sea. Yesterday, with the tide relatively high and the waves crashing on the shore, various birds were scouting out fish to eat. Greg and this Great Blue Heron (as I'm told, as I don't know one bird from another) are eying each other up, and by the next photo, I'd say the bird said "walk this way ..." 

I've only included two photos of Greg and the heron here, but my series of photos had them being quite in step with each other. It was comical.

There was another white bird with bright yellow feet (can't remember it's name ... see the trend here?), at the waters edge, watching the waves crashing and successfully diving for its food. Unfortunately, I don't have a good photo of it; a white bird against the white foam of the waves doesn't work too well, especially on this scale of photo.

So today I'd decided it was time to appreciate what was behind me at the beach, rather than just the ocean and sand. So I took this panoramic photo, with that intention. However, it certainly didn't show what my eyes were seeing, so I took a series of still photos instead.

This starts at the left (north) side of the beach, looking at the mountains and jungle area to the north. That's Greg on the right, by the way.

Here's the next segment, with more jungle, ... and then ... turn to your right ...

... or should I say "tern" to your right ... thanks to my birding friends (because I didn't know what these birds are called)

The mountains are still in the background, although lower, and the jungle area continues. Yes, there's Greg again, as he's walking away as I'm taking these photos. Since I've started blogging, he often has to look back to find me, as I've stopped to take photos :)

And now we're facing south, again looking at the ocean and beach. So, time to leave the beach now, and we decided to walk along the river path, rather than through town. As we leave the beach, towards the river path, we enter a bog area with brackish water (where the salt water mingles with the fresh water).

Here's the view now, looking back at the beach. The shade of the trees was welcome. This photo doesn't do justice to the contrast of colours you see in this serene setting.

We walked the river path, towards home. There is a saying, taken from the lyrics of a 1931 song, that says only "mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun". It seems as though it's not only the Englishmen who do it, as Greg and I do too. This shaded river walk was a nice break from the sun.

Once again I'll end with some cheery flowers. Greg pointed this plant out to me. It was growing in the pillars of a large entranceway into one of the trailer parks here. The flower didn't look very interesting to me, but then Greg took some close up photos.

We saw lots of nature's beauty today, and we are grateful. Today's post is for our friend, Bill. I had planned to skip doing a post today, but he said he would miss reading it. So this one's for you, Bill.

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Location: Lo de Marcos, Nayarit, Mexico
Weather: High of 80ºF (27ºC), low of 69ºF (21ºC)

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