Shorebirds at Fort Desoto

Sandwich terns. I think that first one is yawning.

This little bird was hopping around on one leg. If he had one raised it was well hidden and he hopped around for while.

Ring billed gull posing for me. I've just recently started seeing them again. We don't see them very often here in the summer.

Red knots feeding along the shore. Several of them are banded with lime green tags. I looked them up and reported them and one of them spends summers in New Jersey and winters at Fort Desoto. The other two had only been reported around the central gulf coast.

More busy red knots. The one on the left stuck his face all the way in the sand.

A couple of weekends before Christmas I headed down to Fort Desoto to look around. The morning started out cloudy but a little later the sun started peaking out. The was nothing unusual at the park but I was excited to see a small flock of red knots at the north end of the beach. They were walking right along the shoreline and not really paying attention to me. Luckily there wasn't anyone else around to spook them. I think the wind and clouds had kept people away. I watched them for a while and then later when I was editing the pictures, I noticed the green tags on several of the birds. I reported them on the Florida Shorebird alliance website, which takes you to the Bandedbirds link. It was fun to see where they had been. I still would like to get pictures of the red knots in their summer breeding colors (which turns them a burnt red or orange color). They are pretty rare to find here since they are mostly here in the winter and by then they are in the lighter colors.

  Our World Tuesday

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