Wildlife and landscapes were big reasons why we went to Baja. We got some great views of whales and lots of birds. We also got to go snorkeling and saw some nice reefs and fish. The whales were California Gray Whales, which can reach up to 50 feet in length (15 meters).

Our whale watching was in Puerto Lopez Mateos, a small fishing town on the Pacific Coast. The bay area is a marine reserve.	We went out in small fishing boats called panjas. The local fishermen have a trade organization and take turns taking tourists out on whale watching outings.	The whales winter in the waters of Baja and have their young. The area we watched the whales in was a secluded bay behind a barrier island. Lots of my pictures are gray bump shots like this one.
Here's the money shot!	Another good whale breach.	Tail shots are good too.
Another good tail shot.	I know this doesn't look like much, but this whale surfaced and dove so close to our boat I could have almost reached out and touched it.	We took this picture while sea kayaking. These little birds are called Oyster Crackers.
A white egret. (from sea kayak)	This is a dried up trigger fish that we saw on the beach while out sea kayaking. The beach was some times used by fishermen to sort their catches.	This is an Osprey (fish hawk) nest on a sea cliff. The birds use all sorts of junk to build their nests.
A Magnificent Frigate Bird. These soaring sea birds have a distinctive wing shape and a long tail that they sometimes hold open in a V shape.	Its only a sea gull, but he posed nicely on the bow of our ship. The red spot on it's bill is a feeding / regurgitation spot. The gull's young peck at it, and it triggers the gull to regurgitate up a meal for them. (Yum)	A Blue Heron. It was perched on a fishing boat anchored next to our ship in Puerto Escondido.
A Brown Pelican. They are such big goofy birds, I love em.	These little (1-4 inch) crabs are Sally Lightfoots. They are very colorful and very fast. They hang out on rocks on the water's edge in large groups, and instantly disappear en-mass if you get too close.	A mother mountain goat and two young. (one is rock colored and hard to spot) We our driver spotted them from quite a distance while we were driving to San Javier.
Vultures. They were all over the place in Baja. They looked great when they were perched on a big cactus with their wings spread out sunning themselves. These vultures were part of a group of almost a dozen vultures that were feeding on some kind of carcass.		Camera footnote: My camera is a Nikon 6006, and most of the wildlife shots were taken with my Tameron 90-300mm lens. Close shots were taken with my Nikon 28-70mm lens.Some shots I zoomed in on further when I scanned them.