The fishermen's beach

Our little apartment is just three blocks from the part of the beach where the fishermen keep their boats. We walked by yesterday morning to find a very busy scene.  The fishermen were unloading their boats attended by flocks of frigate birds, pelicans and gulls.






The frigate birds swoop in to see what's available, like this one who's keeping a close eye on the guy leaning into his the boat.






Further down the beach there's a fish cleaning area that's well attended by the brown pelicans. These birds are completely attentive to the proceedings, and are rewarded from time to time with the head or a tail of a fish.

I'm just entranced by these heavy ungainly pelicans. They look awkward when they're walking on the beach, but when their in the air and diving for fish they are so elegant.  I'll try to get some photos of this later.

The result of the fishermen's labours rests on a try here. Likely it will be taken right down to the fish market for quick sale. One thing you can be sure of here is that the fish will be fresh.

As we were standing there watching, a young fellow came up to us holding a sharpened stick with a small piece of fish stuck on the end.  He encouraged us to hold it up so the frigate birds could swoop in and grab it.  In the bottom picture you can see just how big these birds are.