Animals Seen at Ladera

We read somewhere before we left that the open structure of the Ladera suites would provide us with a close association with critters. The bug netting over the bed should convince anyone of that! Every night at dusk, the chorus of frogs chirping would begin to last through most of the night. In the morning, we'd wake to the chicken crowing and/or cow mooing from a nearby house.

Below are the pictures I managed to catch of some of the animals. We also saw a hummingbird that visited our flowers at least once a day. There were a number of black or grey starling-like birds that would beg scraps at meals. (Including one at the Hilton we called "Stumpy", a grey bird that was missing one foot.) I saw a brief glimpse of something that looked like a yellow oriole, and a pair of what looked like perigrine falcons. There was also some sort of hawk that circled over the valley now and then. In additon to the songbirds below, we saw little pale-yellow bellied birds that would sing up a storm. There were also numerous swallows out in the evenings eating bugs.

We saw two very large toads out at night, both were a large handful in size. One took a swim in the koi ponds, and the other was content to sit under a spotlight an eat the flies that came by.