We are blessed with a beautiful sunny day today with mild temperature - armed with binoculars, scopes and cameras our group of 23 headed out to the beach.
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| It's low tide and looking promising. |
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| Every which way - there was something to see - humanoids included. |
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| An Oystercatcher |
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| A Wilson Plover - chunky bill and pinkish legs. |
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| The Green Heron blending well with its surrounding. |
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| Adult Oystercatcher |
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| Double-crested Cormorant with their beautiful emerald green eyes. |
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| Another Wilson Plover - this one getting cooled off by the vegetation. |
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| A Great Blue Heron shooting the breeze. |
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| A Ruddy Turnstone wearing its brown winter coat. |
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| A Semi-palmated Plover with its orange legs. |
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| A Piping Plover |
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| More American Oystercatchers |
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| Ruddy Turnstone - These 9.5" birds are so called because they turn and flick stones/shells while looking for whatever food morsels might be hiding under. |
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| A Piping Plover - similar to the Snowy at a quick glance, the piping has orange legs and the snowy has black ones. |
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| This adult American Oystercatcher is sporting Green "X" bands and a silver band on the left foot. |
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| An adult Brown Pelican |
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| A Tricolored Heron |
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| A couple of Bald Eagles were observed on our walk back. |
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| A White-winged Dove. |
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| A flock of White Pelicans gave us a good show - switching leaders and changing the formation pattern too. |
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| We made our way to the Mound House for our lunch and bird list recap - while eating we saw this adult female Cooper Hawk land right over our heads. |
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| Afterwards we followed Penny into the learning center - we learned about the Calusa Indians, how they lived and the tools they used. |
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| These fossils were part of the wall - which demonstrated layers upon layers dating back thousands of years. |
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| The lecture was fascinating and filled with interesting facts, please visit their website www.moundhouse.org |
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| On the way out, I spotted an adult Iguana - he spotted all the people coming over to see it and started to disappear before I could get a good photo of it....but you can still see its scaly skin, its spines and its claws....it was bright green and probably had been basking in the sun for some time. |
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| Elaine stopped at Matanzas Pass Preserve and we took a lovely walk along the boardwalk.... |
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| At some location we could feast our eyes on the Estero Bay. |
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| This map was at the Matanzas Pass Preserve and you could use this map as a reference point for the locations that we visited today....we started with Little Estero Island CWA and then visited the Mound House and finished with Matanzas Pass Preserve. A lovely day birding, as always. My E-Bird List for today. |
That's a great map for someone from overseas to look at to get a good idea of the relationship of places we read about. I hadn't realised that some of these places were so close to Sanibel Island - somewhere I hope to see one day. I particularly like the second Brown Pelican image as I hadn't realised their pouch is so brown, having only seen them in the distance.
ReplyDeleteLooks like another fun filled day birding... Looks like the oystercatcher was looking for some breakfast...love thw Wilson plover. They remind me of a puff ball. I want a hair do just like the one you saw today on the great blue heron...just for the record "I will see a white pelican some day." Wow!!! An iguana too.
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