Along the Sunshine Skyway bridge - Skywatch Friday

Dunlins digging in the sand. (Thanks Steve, for the ID).

Two ruddys on a rock.

Ruddy turnstone all alone.

Pelican flying by.

Kiteboarders

Perfect windy day.

I headed down to the outlet mall just south of St. Petersburg. I threw my camera in the car just in case I saw something interesting. It was a cool and windy day so I was not surprised to see a bunch of kiteboarders in the water. I pulled off on the access road near the Sunshine Skyway bridge and snapped a few pictures of them. It looks like fun but it's really hard. My hubby does it and he has taken lessons and still says it's hard.  There were a few shorebirds hanging around but nothing unusual.  

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Fort Desoto birds and a new duck

My first red breasted merganser sighting. We don't get these too often in central Florida. This is the first I've heard of one being in the Tampa bay area.

Little sanderling flapping after a bath.

Black bellied plover in not-quite breeding colors. Stomach is still light colored.

Another black bellied plover that is in full breeding color.

A little corner behind the roped off area that is full of birds. Looks like a lot of royal terns and plovers. Maybe some dowitchers in there as well. I had heard red knots were at the park but I didn't see any when I was there a couple of weekends ago.

Dowitchers sleeping. Nothing like a nice nap on the beach. Although, I wouldn't want to do it standing on one leg.

Birds on the causeway - Skywatch Friday

Another stop on the Courtney Campbell causeway during my drive home from work two weeks ago. I'm really going to miss these now that the time has changed and it's a dark trip home.  The above was a flock of skimmers that took off when a jogger went running by. At first I was mad at the jogger for disturbing the birds but it did make for a nicer picture.

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Cute little plover watching me.

A small group of marbled godwits trying to sleep. I think I was keeping them up even though I wasn't too close.

Finally, the sun went down and the moon came out. I took this on the causeway with my 300mm lens handheld.

Dowitchers walking along the shore after sunset.

Sanderling running for cover after dark. I used my flash on this one.

You can usually find at least one night heron on the causeway. This was an immature.

Early birds at the North Beach Marsh

Oystercatchers trying to sleep.

 

Marbled godwits trying to sleep.

Another "willet scratching" shot. These guys seem to do this a lot.

Snowy egret hanging on.

 

Little sanderlings looking for food.

Actually it wasn't that early. It was just before noon a couple of weeks ago at Fort Desoto. I was hoping to catch all of the shore birds doing something cute or eating but most of them were just trying to sleep.  You can always find sanderlings running along the beach looking for food. They dig their little beaks into the sand. I'm not sure what they are finding. I never do see them actually eat anything. They run really fast on those little legs. Since it was a quiet day I grabbed lunch and the beach chair and sat down to read for a while.

A Day At the Beach

Laughing gull sitting next to our beach chairs.

Cute sanderling running around the beach. These little birds are so much fun to watch. They are so tiny and run so fast on their little legs.



Willet dodging the waves.

Sunday morning turned out to be sunny. We loaded up the car with lunch, beach chairs and umbrella and went down to Fort Desoto in St. Petersburg to spend the afternoon. It was a nice quiet time on the beach. Not many people there. We had a few shore birds walk by so I snapped a couple of pictures. The gull stalked our spot the entire time we were there. No treats for him. The rain moved in later in the day so we left, but not before snapping the below picture of the rain in front of us.