Four Great Shots And A Day’s Work… All Before Breakfast

Orlan­do Mergal

Last Mon­day my wife and I got up ear­ly. I was going to shoot a cou­ple of build­ings in Cabo Rojo for a New-York-based cus­tomer. The idea was to catch the sun­rise, so we got up at 3:00am and had left by 4:00am.

By sev­en we had shot both build­ings, had break­fast and were on our way to the coastal area of Cabo Rojo to make a few pic­tures for my Puer­to Rico Pho­tog­ra­phy web­site. The Cabo Rojo coast is one of those places where you can’t shoot any­thing ugly even if you try. The place is that gorgeous!

We first drove by the small town of Boquerón where I spot­ted a cou­ple of sail­boats moored in a glasslike bay. Stun­ning!!! There were birds every­where and a great sense of calm. The streets were emp­ty and the shops were closed, so essen­tial­ly I had the place to myself.

Morn­ing at Boquerón Beach

I popped off a cou­ple of shots and moved to the small town of Com­bate, anoth­er beau­ti­ful area sev­er­al miles to the south. Once again I had the place to myself, so I made a cou­ple of pic­tures on the beach and moved to the near­by Cabo Rojo Nation­al Wildlife Refuge where I shot a beau­ti­ful Pitirre.

Pitirre At Cabo Rojo Wildlife Reserve

The Pitirre (Grey King­bird) is a large, vocal and con­spic­u­ous bird that is typ­i­cal­ly seen perch­ing on exposed branch­es, with a large vis­i­bil­i­ty range, as it search­es for fly­ing insects to catch mid-air. It lives all-year-round in Puer­to Rico and is also seen sea­son­al­ly in the south­east­ern Unit­ed States, Colum­bia and Venezuela.

In Puer­to Rico there’s a say­ing: “cada Guaraguao tiene su Pitirre” (every Guaraguao has it’s Piti­tirre). Guaraguaos are large birds that have the abil­i­ty to swoop from high alti­tudes and feed off chick­ens and oth­er small birds. But Pitir­res fly high and bite the Guaraguaos under their wings until they bring them down. The say­ing illus­trates how every bul­ly even­tu­al­ly runs into some­one small­er that brings him down.

Com­bate Beach

I hard­ly con­sid­er myself a bird pho­tog­ra­ph­er (God knows that I don’t have the patience) but I sim­ply find the Pitirre shot beau­ti­ful (if I do say so myself).

Puente de Piedra (stone bridge)

Final­ly we vis­it­ed “El Puente De Piedra” (the stone bridge) a large coastal fea­ture about half a mile due west of Los Mor­ril­los Ligh­house in Cabo Rojo. I had want­ed to shoot this place for years but was nev­er able to find it. As it turns out, I had been look­ing for it east of the light­house and it was actu­al­ly in the oppo­site direc­tion.  Now I know how Colum­bus must have felt.

By 10:30am I was on my way back and by 1:00pm I was home.

So in one morn­ing I shot a com­mer­cial job and added four great images to my Puer­to Rico Pho­tog­ra­phy col­lec­tion. Not bad for a morning’s work!

Final­ly, I would like to announce that after an absence of more than a year I will be revis­it­ing Puer­to Rico By GPS on a more reg­u­lar basis and post­ing new and excit­ing places to visit.

Hope you like the pictures!!!

©2018,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
____________________

Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590

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