Fort Desoto - Skywatch Friday

Least tern looking for fish.

Laughing gulls chasing a least tern.

Nice hair day. Snowy egret catching the wind on a lamp post.

Manatee snuggling up to a raft.

Another beautiful Sunday afternoon at Ford Desoto beach. I had already walked down the beach to the fishing pier and had come back to hubby at the beach chairs. We were sitting under the umbrella contemplating whether it was time to go home or should we stay a little longer. Then hubby says "Far down the beach, there's a big brown blob in the water. Is that a manatee?" We knew the dolphins wouldn't get that close to shore along the stretch of beach. We had never seen a manatee along the beach line. I've only seen them on the other side of the park, in the lagoon area, when I was kayaking. Then people started pointing to it. The manatee swam up to few people who were swimming along the sand bar. I grabbed my camera and took some pictures. I waded out until I was waist deep holding my camera on my head. People were swimming near it and weren't sure what to do. One little kid went screaming out of the water. I kept telling people to just stand still and let it swim up to them, which it did. It's pretty cool to have one swim up to you in the wild, at a place where you didn't have to pay to swim with them. He was so close I could only get pictures of his snout. All the while hubby was watching from the beach chair. When I got back to my chair he said "You're such a tourist." I'm glad we stayed a little longer.

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A stop on Gandy Bridge beach.

Least tern.

Juvenile least tern.

Osprey with lunch. Made me hungry.

He decided he didn't want an audience. He was sitting right on Gandy bridge eating.

"Doesn't anyone want my gift?" said the lonely least tern.

On my drive home from Fort Desoto, I stopped along the Gandy bridge beach. All I found were a lot of least terns. That's about all that was there. There were a few cars parked on the beach and a couple of dogs running around so I'm sure only the bravest terns were there. I managed to find a juvenile least tern which was a first for me. As I was getting bored and ready to leave, an osprey flew over my head with a fish. He landed close by on a utility wire right on the main road. He ate a few bites then took off over the water.

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Kayaking - Skywatch Friday

My kayaking view from upper Tampa Bay.

I'm paddling along and I see this bird in the dead mangroves (still dead from the big freeze winter before this last one).

I stop and think "I've never seen this bird before." I paddle backwards towards the birds and get out my camera.

When I got home I looked it up in the Florida Audubon guide. I think it's an eastern kingbird, which is a type of flycatcher. If so, then it's a first for me. I had my small point and shoot camera so I wasn't able to get a good close up of them. And rocking back and forth in a kayak doesn't help. There was 2 of them and they flew around the edge of the mangroves for a while. They didn't seem to be too skittish (not as bad as kingfishers) but if my kayak floated too close to the mangroves they would move over a few branches.

Least terns on the sign.

There's usually a least tern on every crab trap bouy.

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Shorebirds on the causeway

Young royal tern making a racket.

First year least tern that's been banded. I couldn't see the numbers on these bands.

Another least tern with only one band.

Marbled godwit.

Cute little plover.

The Courtney Campbell Causeway is starting to get an influx of different shorebirds. I stopped by there after work one day last week when it was about to rain so there wasn't too many people on the small beach on the Clearwater side. Lots of young birds there that aren't in full adult colors yet. The least tern's beak will turn yellow after it's first year. Migration season is starting so I'm going to try and hit this little beach and Gandy beach after work for the next couple of weeks to see if I can find some different birds. I heard common terns and gull-billed terns hanging around so I'm going to try and find them.

Birds at Honeymoon Island (and a crab too).

Two baby opsrey letting me know it's their trail I'm walking on. (It is called Osprey Trail at Honeymoon Island for a reason.)

One of the parents looking around.

Willet

Cormorant going for a swim.

Loney least tern on the beach.

Last weekend I went to Honeymoon Island to walk the Opsrey Trail. I hadn't been there in several months. It was so hot, even early in the morning. There's not much going on there except for ospreys. Lots of them still hanging around the nests. I didn't see many other birds until I got out on the beach. There was a controlled burn done recently on the first part of the trail, so that may have scared off some of the birds for a while. The northern beach did not have much bird traffic as well. I think my next trip out to the trail will not be until the eagles come back, hopefully December. I did see the below crab on shoreline.