February in August . . .

. . . Another glorious sunrise over the Atlantic, in Feb., the coldest month of the year here in NE Florida. And I do mean cold . . . during one beach visit, my feet were so painfully numb I had to cut the time there short. But the sunrises are worth it!

I continued to find interesting calico scallops in Feb. Above, this scallop has acorn barnacles attached. The gray and yellow one below, was an especially unique find . . .

I found my second common nutmeg shell! Don't let the photo fool you, they only reach a max of 1.7" (4.5 cm)

I thought this was a "turkey wing" ark, but it's a red-brown ark. I only have one turkey wing, from the Gulf Coast. I have about 3 of these red-browns, compared to zillions of the incongruous arks. There are actually 10 types of arks found in Florida.

This royal starfish was growing an arm back . . .

I know it's sad to see a dead sea creature, but I was also fascinated to see a puffer fish on the beach. This is a Spiny Box Puffer, or Striped Burrfish.

I found a mostly buried sand dollar . . . and was surprised that it was a whole one!

Ring-billed gulls were hanging out one morning . . .

As were these herring gulls . . . (note pale pink legs) . . . only seen in winter here.

Royal terns are seen year-round, but it's more fun to see their 'do in winter. The "Florida's Living Beaches" ID book actually notes that "Royal terns shun 'the comb-over' " !

The Forster's terns were chillin' too . . . note the black mottled crown above the eye patch ~ in late winter, their heads darken from masks to caps.

This ruddy turnstone's plumage is transitioning from breeding to winter colors. Ruddies winter along most of Florida's coastlines, but they live year-round along the panhandle coast.

The Bald Truth . . .

Another beach therapy day today…sometimes a beachcomber's best find for the day, isn't on the sand…so here's the bald truth, which can now be told since I've been able to right a wrong…the first time I visited this beach, since deciding to make an effort to go weekly, I did not take my SLR camera. At that time, I was strolling along, scanning the sand…rounded the bend where the Atlantic and Matanzas Inlet meet, and lo and behold…a bald eagle. A stationery, perched bald eagle, just waiting for some camera nut to have a field day. Needless to say, a whole lot of moaning and groaning and sand-kicking ensued. ARG! That'll teach me…and yes, it did. On the way home, I slinked into Walmart and bought a backpack. Now the SLR rides piggyback on the beach…

AnyWHO, this am, (weeks later now), bright and early, I once again round the bend, lo and behold…Mr. or Mrs. Baldie has returned…Oh Yay!! The eagle was actually perched on a very tall post, a handful of yards away…. 

…. Like this….

…I was so busy falling over myself to get photos of baldie that the black-bellied plover that I was trying to capture during my previous beach bumming excursion, almost went unnoticed…still didn't get a decent shot of the fully transitioned-to-summer-plumage plover, but you can see that the black and white is striking…

…I also nearly tripped over a snowy egret that was fishing and striding past me...

…the same pretty much goes for the common grackle...

…By the way, the sunrise was lovely this morning...

On the way back from whence I came, I passed this big (22"), peg-legged immature lesser black-backed gull…I always seem to stumble upon one lone LBB gull each visit to this beach…there were also Wilson's plovers and sanderlings that I didn't capture...

…This brown 2" common American auger shell was my favorite find on the sand today...

The ruddy turnstones have their summer plumage now…

…This shrimp was probably left by a surf fisherman…

There have been a lot of shells on the beach lately, that have anemones on them, like this ark…
I'm not sure but these may be hermit crab anemones…

My 2nd sighting of red knots in summer plumage…


Just another therapeutic day on the beach   :)

Another Day at the Beach

As luck would have it, good friends of ours, R and L, have purchased a monster RV and are taking delight in "camping" at a beach-front park in our area. They live near Orlando, and like many Floridians, lease their house out to snow birds…so they've been taking 4-7 day trips to escape the hustle and bustle of a more urban life. And we've been visiting them during their stays…the weather was nasty (but hey, no snow!) during their 3rd and 2nd-to-last visits, but it was just warm enough weather a week ago, during their most recent visit, when we met them on the beach….I didn't go far at all to take some photos of the shore birds at hand...

A large, mixed cluster of sea birds were just chillin' less than 50 yards from where we planted ourselves, including these two royal terns and their hilarious 'dos…they never cease to amuse me…once summer plumage takes over the 'do will be a solid black cap up to the bill...

This little Forster's tern will also have a solid black cap come summer, but they only winter along the Florida coastlines...

The black skimmers were still in presence, in a larger number than my previous visit...

…Again, a lone willet among the larger gulls and terns…the willets seem to be tireless feeders at the ocean's edge, and this was the first time I saw one head up onto the sand, and seem to think to itself "Hmm, this looks like a good spot…"

…And then proceed to settle in for a good rest.

There were also the usual small number of ruddy turnstones (and sanderlings) skittering about, and the one brave rogue who came close to see if a snack would be tossed its way…this shot was taken from my beach chair...

And so was this shot, I admit…out of nowhere this brown pelican flapped down to the sand, stood in one spot checking things out…and then took off…you never now what will come along at a Florida beach…we saw Northern gannets diving into the ocean, too far out for photos…and the token osprey made its appearance, also not quite close enough…

Just another day at the beach!


Back at our humble cottage, today...

I believe this is an Eastern phoebe! A lifer! It visited the back yard briefly…no seeds for this one tho. The yellow-rumped warblers, however, are flocking all over the place and even visiting our feeders these days.

 I also discovered that the Carolina wrens aren't as scarce as I thought…they're just busy nibbling insects on the north side of the house.

Flagler Finds

Summer is winding down...even in central Florida...but for now it's still plenty warm. Just not quite as warm as September. Our old homestead in S Dakota just got slammed with 3 feet of record-breaking snowfall a couple days ago, yikes! (The Rapid City area.) That "world" seems ages ago...it has been nearly two years now since we left the midwest...it'll officially be two years at the end of this month.

So, speaking of our new reality...Hubby and I really don't get to the beach nearly as often as we should, but we did recently get some beach therapy...

...It was lunchtime, and not just for us but for this ruddy turnstone as well....

...And this sanderling...

The sand ghost crabs are abundant on Flagler Beach, providing free entertainment as they go about the serious business of clearing sand from their tunnel homes. It was another relaxing, pleasant day at sea side.

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.....Back at home, I've been keeping track of all the interesting things nature is coming up with in our own back yard......

This pretty bloom is actually hanging in the back neighbor's yard, just over our fence...but the scraggly little tree is actually in our yard. The squirrels use it as a ladder to get up onto the fence.

This tree has pretty, peeling bark...and white cluster blossoms up on top.

These clusters of tiny mushrooms kept appearing on and off this summer, under the magnolia "tree" (it's actually a branch sprouted from a magnolia tree stump, but it looks like a small tree and has had blossoms  :) )...

In the front yard, I recently captured a fritillary at a crown-of-thorns...

Lately, I've been sticking close to home due to a nasty head cold / bronchitis, which is finally getting better and I'm feeling more amongst the living again.

G is for Gallinule, Gator, Girl, Gulls, Gimpie, Gannet

Ok, I'm a little pink-faced as I admit I forgot to post some stuff from December...so here I am back-tracking to early December, when our daughter was visiting and the three of us had headed down to the Ft. Lauderdale area. We stayed a couple days with my brother-in-law, whom we had lived with the first 6 months upon our arrival in Florida.

While there, the 3 of us and BIL's girlfriend Karen went to the Everglades Holiday Park, to take dtr. on an air boat ride.  We didn't realize we were walking onto the set of a reality show!  This is where "Gator Boys" is filmed.  No TV cameras that day...but we had an interesting, fun visit...despite the lack of any real time spent speeding fast in the boat....

During the air boat ride, we spotted some purple gallinules!  A lifer bird for me, very exciting as the gallinule is so colorful and not seen in very many states outside of Florida....this was my 2nd to last lifer sighted in 2012. Unfortunately I couldn't get any clear pics of one, ARG!

Er....we also spotted a couple alligators, which was expected...

Back on land, we checked out the Gator Boys' gator show, then I shelled out some cash so dtr. could hold a baby gator....awww, isn't it cute?

Not so cute that we minded snacking on one of its cousins...Karen bought us all a plate of gator bites, frog legs, and some unidentified fish, all breaded and deep fried...duh...

I'd already tried gator some time ago, but frog legs? If dtr. can do it, so can I....

they taste like mild fish...(not chicken!)

While snacking, we had a peacock hanging around, looking for hand-outs....don't bother rubbing your eyes, it IS a peacock!

In fact, we had a line at the table waiting for dropped crumbs...that's a boat-tailed grackle behind the peacock....

Mr. P went as far as posing pretty to try to encourage us to toss him some goodies...

*    *    *    *   *

Ok, back at home.....

Update: I had this labeled as an American Pipit and a lifer...my first reaction had been that it was a female red-winged blackbird, but the vivid white eyebrow threw me off because the female blackbirds I'd seen while living in S Dakota had less prominent, beige eyebrows.  Fellow bird nerd Laurence let me know (thank you!) he believes it's a blackbird...so I went back over my two field guides and, looking at the beak, I would have to concur this is the female red-winged blackbird....darn it.  LOL. Oh well, that just means that my last lifer sighting for 2012 is the blurry Northern gannet!

Back to 2013.....barely....

Rube and I hit the beach a few days ago, soon as the up and down weather hit an "up"....

We saw the usual shore birds, like this sanderling amid some frothy sea foam...

Ok everyone, pop quiz.....what IS this?!  Choices: Red Knot (winter plumage), which I believe it is; Western sandpiper, which appears to have black not greenish legs; or least sandpiper, tho I'm pretty sure it's not that due to the size and darker winter plumage. The other similar birds either don't come to Florida or don't have greenish legs in winter or...I'm labeling it a red knot.  A lifer!

I just don't get it...how can the juvenile ring-billed gull be larger than the adult?!  Can anyone explain this?!  Or is there another immature gull that looks like the imm. RBG? ARG!!

This sweet little ruddy turnstone was resting on the orange shell chips that were scattered on the beach...

But it wasn't alone...this one-legged sanderling was sticking close by. Aww, what are friends for?!

(And yes, I'm sure it was one-legged, I saw it hop.)

I shot this very distant flyer out over the ocean, thinking it may be a wintering white pelican...but it's a Northern gannet!! Another lifer!

So, there's a long boardwalk from the parking lot to the beach in this one spot...along the boardwalk there's a sign with info about the burrowing gopher tortoise that lives in the dunes there, which is clearly being protected from beachgoers.  There was an older couple reading the sign when we came back over the walk towards the parking...I mumbled to myself, yea right, you and I will never see one tho.....crossing the parking lot, we saw 3 kids huddled together looking at something....and there was this tortoise trudging along, hell-bent on reaching the safety of the dunes.  A turtle lifer!

Heading back south along A1A, we stopped in the Marineland area (a town with a dolphin rehab center)...to check out a holding pond, where some big groupers were swimming around...at the far end was this lone little blue heron....

Outnumbered by a flock of brown pelicans....

On the lawn nearby, killdeer were making their eerie call...

And to cap the outing, further down the road Rube pulled over when an osprey flew over the car and I exclaimed, "It's got a fish!"  Luckily, the osprey landed on a nearby pole, still flopping fish in its claw, and I was able to get some decent shots.


** My bird species count for 2012 is a measly 83, so I'm hoping to see at least 100 in 2013.