July in May

The weather has been humid and a little hot, more like June or July than May, here in NE Florida…I've taken to getting up before 6 a.m. to get to the beach just before sunrise, to beat the heat…and the other shell seekers. I've also spent three hours on the beach the past couple visits…amazing how time flies when you're having fun…

…You can see the humid haze in the sunrise yesterday… (and a lone ruddy turnstone…)

…the white baby's ears are fairly common at "my" beach; I always find a few...

…I also find a few scallops and several slippersnails…

…But this was the first lightning whelk egg casing I've come across so far…there are actually tiny lightning whelks inside! 

…Speaking of whelks, I found this slightly roughed up, but whole knobbed whelk last week...

…This tiny striped porcelain crab was perched on a large horseshoe crab carcus recently...

…This is the horseshoe crab, with the water bottle for size reference…the crabs reach up to 24" and I'd say this one was almost that, from the tip of its tail to the top...quite large...

…Another scallop…most scallops I find on "my" beach are black, which means they were buried for a long time in sediment…lately I've been finding white ones...

…The lettered olive shells are fairly common too…I usually find 1-3 of them.

The beaches of St. John and Flagler Co. are known for their coquina limestone sand and coquina clam shells, but I normally see single shell halves…I recently came across a large pile of live coquinas that had washed ashore, included the pretty striped ones, which usually are pretty scarce to me.

… ? ? ?  It appears that a shorebird…seagull…? Landed here, contemplated the little shell wrack, then flew off again…I found this pair of lone footprints in the sand, no other prints around them.

…I'm enjoying seeing the Wilson's plovers; don't know how I missed them the past 3 years…they summer here in NE Florida, but are found year-round in S. Florida.

…Also, on closer inspection of grainy photos, I realized these were not the commonly seen sanderlings (which have dark legs) I thought they were…they're least sandpipers, which have yellowish legs. They should be heading on north soon...

Imagine my surprise and delight at finding another lovely royal starfish, posing beautifully on top of a pile of shell hash….hmm did I even share my first time finding one of these? Doesn't look like it…oops! Quite the stunning surprise, needless to say!

Twice I've seen this Nanday (or black-faced) parakeet duo perched on a wire along Hwy. A1A by a line of beach homes….the parakeets are native to S. America and, like the monk parakeets seen in S. Florida, are escaped exotic pets. These are the first exotic escapees I've seen here.

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   :)

Sea Treasure Finds...

When I decided to make the effort to get beach therapy on a weekly basis (as much as humanly possible)…I started out visiting N. Peninsula Beach, which is just south of Flagler Beach. It's a nice enough beach, esp. since almost no one goes there, but the bounty from beach-combing isn't the greatest. The best seashells are on the W. coast of Florida, but I still manage to find plenty of interesting, attractive shells and other neat sea treasures….

Sunrise at N. Peninsula Beach…by the light of the silvery…sun…

I always head for the beach around sunrise...

Nature creates plenty of lovely shell pendants…

esp. ark shells in my beachy part of the world…

in white, orange, brown, and black...

The ocean breeze can leave these pretty ripples in the coquina sand...

…A sanderling taking a morning bath…

I'd never witnessed this before…

They're usually busy fishing for breakfast...

 Not good photos, but you can see that this is a Florida scrub jay…

They live in the sandy, scrubby terrain of N. Peninsula State Park…

Which lies between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway.

 Ghost crabs are plentiful along our beaches…

I had two startle me while I was busy scanning the high tide wrack…

The cannonball jellyfish wash ashore by the dozens in late winter…

…An angelwing shell…

There are a lot of feathers washed ashore…

This was the first raptor feather I've seen…

No clue if it's an osprey's but they fish the Atlantic

daily and can be seen most visits to the beach...

I've seen a couple of these spider crabs…

Thank goodness they're small! Yeesh!

I also made a visit to the beach at Marineland, south of St. Augustine…

the area has the interesting coquina limestone formations…

…A couple laughing gulls chillin' in the morning light…

…I didn't find any exciting shells, but did find this brown sea cucumber…
I highly recommend not touching one if you see it…eeeek!

The Rookery in St. Augustine

It's been almost a year since I first visited the St. Augustine Alligator Farm…I hadn't intended to go back, due to the entry fee plus having to see all those penned gators, but a friend invited me to go with her and a few of her friends, with lunch afterwards, and I couldn't resist. We all went to see the activity at the rookery, not the gators….

I considered it extremely lucky to witness these two roseate spoonbills performing the "mutual pair display" as Stokes Field Guide to Birds puts it. They rub bills and present sticks to one another. These two are under three years old (imm.)

…This is an adult roseate spoonbill…you can see the difference in its coloring.

…Another adult roseate spoonbill, taking a dip and fishing…very brave, considering the base of the rookery is 90% pond and crawling with gators.

There were only a few hatchlings in nests, all of them great egrets…the chicks sure look prehistoric, don't they?!

This great egret was busy displaying…

A snowy egret enjoying "alone" time…as much as possible in a small area covered in nesting shore birds…the call of the snowy egret sounds like Daffy Duck trying to blow bubbles!

Another pensive snowy egret, this one with the red breeding facial skin.

Last year, I only saw one cattle egret and couldn't get a decent photo. This year, there was a small handful of cattle egrets in one tree, but still hard to get a decent shot.

There were a few tri-colored herons…I can't help but wonder if some or most of these birds nest in the same spot each year...

The wood storks all nest in one large tree in the rookery…the tree is covered in birds, but I managed to single out this one stork. Last year, I didn't get any decent shots of them.

Beachcomber's Basics

Due to changes in my life, I've decided to change my Blog as well…I've changed the title (not the URL), and am tweaking its direction. About a month ago, I began making an effort to get to the beach at least once a week, for both the physical and mental health that being at and walking on the beach gives me. Esp. now that it's spring and the weather's alot nicer…

I recently attended a "Beachcomber's Basics" class, and was greatly inspired to embrace my beach-y side. My doc had recently asked me, after informing me I need to lose 30 lb., what exercise I like to do best. Well, I like walking. I thought about her question for days, realized that what I really like best is walking…on the beach. So, I've been getting to the beach 1-2 times a week. I go early in the AM, to beat the heat and the "crowds", although the beach I go to is nearly deserted.  :)

I made one such run for the beach this AM…..

…And found 5-6 black-bellied plovers dotting the shore…

This was a first; I'd never seen more than one lone plover before…

They must be gathering before heading N. for the summer…

This plover's plumage is changing from winter to breeding colors…

I did see only one lone laughing gull…

My first photo this year of one with it's breeding plumage...

While at the Beachcomber's Basics class, a really handy guide book

was suggested, "Florida's Living Beaches: A Guide for the Curious

Beachcomber", which I dashed home and bought online…it's

definitely very handy to have! It IDs everything found on FL's coastlines, from 

shells to plants and shore birds. I've come across a handful of

different types of crabs lately (besides the common ghost crab)…

today I found my first speckled crab. Sorry to say, he's deceased.

Backyard Blue

It's definitely spring here in NE Florida, with temperatures in the 80's but not too humid, yet. It's the time of year I love sitting on the back screened porch and reading or watching the different birds eating at the feeders, flitting around in the trees, or zipping by on their way to somewhere else. A couple weeks ago, hubby put up a birdhouse for me in the best spot available to attract an Eastern bluebird couple. Well, today while enjoying the bird action and reading a good book, two bluebirds showed up. One was making a fuss, so I hope it wasn't sniping about not wanting to move in!

This bluebird was outside, in a nearby tree, and on the fence...

…Or the rooftop…

(Shots are blurry due to being taken through the porch screen)

…While the other one went indoors to check things out…

There's lots of action at the feeders, too, including goldfinches…

at first they were all the dull, wintery pale grey-yellow, but now

I'm seeing a few bright yellow males. The chipping sparrows have been
back, too. We're also seeing the usual:

No. cardinals, tufted titmice, blue jays, red-bellied woodpeckers,

and Carolina wrens…plus an occasional downy woodpecker,

a scarce palm warbler, some pine warblers, and I did see a brown

thrasher recently, but none since. No buntings at all like last year.  :(