The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Rain, sun, wind...insects, birds, flowers...meteorites, rocks...seasonal changes...all are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
This being spring break I've had a bit more time than normal to poke about in the natural world. One thing that has been concerning me a bit over the last few months is the apparent paucity of shorebirds at one of my usual coastal haunts, Bald Point State Park in the eastern Florida panhandle. And in the last month or so, the scarcity of loons at both Bald Point and neighboring Alligator Point which is the usual go to place for loons and sea ducks in these parts.
However I've only made a couple of visits since mid-January and for a fairly restricted time for each visit. Yesterday Ms Mole and I drove St. George Island, further to our west to enjoy a walk on the beach.
It was warm (high around 73 on the water, low 80s inland), overcast early and clearing later in the afternoon. The water is still chilly (low to mid 60s) and was quite clear. St George Island is close to the mouth of the Apalachicola River and the water is often tannic/slightly murky.
We went to the end of open access road (there is a permit only dirt road that goes to the far east end of the island), parked and walked east. Within ten minutes we had passed the last set of people and had the entire beach to ourselves.
Our day had started off well. Before reaching the island we had stopped at Carabelle Beach which has a very nice 'old school' picnic area. We notice an object on the water that seemed to be drifting with the current but would disappear and reappear. Using our binocs we were able to ascertain that it was the dorsal fin of a shark, slowly moving down the coast. Unfortunately I have no idea what kind of shark it was (not a blacktip). It is only my 9th sighting of a wild shark so an excellent beginning. Much too distant for photos.
On the beach at St. George we were pleased to note a diversity of shore birds. There weren't huge numbers but all the common winter beach species were present (willet, sanderling, dunlin, black-bellied plover, ruddy-turnstone) and seen several times. I also saw a couple of short-billed (presumably) dowitchers which, in my experience, are unusual to see on the beach except during migration.
There were also quite a few snowy plovers, some pairing up (below) - the east end of St. George is important breeding habitat for these guys. We also saw at least one piping plover which did not cooperate for photos but was heavily banded. The piping plovers are threatened birds. They don't breed in our area but do winter here.
This being a matching mole diary it's time for some bad photos. The real show of the day was happening offshore and I had elected not to bring my spotting scope - bad decision. The clear water may have made visual hunting easier and there were a lot of fishing birds out just beyond the surf. There were cormorants, all bunched in group with smaller numbers of brown pelicans in and around them. These are year round birds. The winter visitors included a group of red-breasted mergansers, mostly females with a handful of males. And loons galore. Almost everywhere I looked I could see a (common) loon out in the water, sometimes 2 or three together. At the end of our walk we encountered a very large group of birds with about a dozen loons hanging out at one end of it. I always think of loons as being pretty solitary in the winter, as opposed to the much more gregarious cormorants but maybe others have different experiences.
Mergansers
Cormorants and pelicans with some loons on the left side.
Sorry for the poor quality - you'll have to take my word for it.
There were a few other fishing birds out there. The osprey (below) made a couple of dives and then left. We also saw a northern gannet (I don't remember if I've seen one there before, they are fairly common in winter off the St. Joe Peninsula further west) make one of their spectacular dives (imagine something the size of a goose diving like a tern). The birds that were a bit sparse were gulls and terns - we saw laughing, ring-billed and a herring gull as well as single royal tern and a number of Forster's terns. But given the amount of fishing activity I was surprised not to see more of them out there fishing.
To finish up, we saw a single bottle-nosed dolphin. They are quite commonly seen off St George although seeing one by itself is mildly unusual.
That's it for me, what's up in your neck of the woods?
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