I’ve recently returned from a trip to the west coast of Florida. I spent a lot of time looking for fossils on the beach, as well as checking out the beautiful and exotic birds that call Florida home. I am not an expert on either fossils or birds. I did my best to identify the subjects of my photos, but I’m sure I’ve made some mistakes. If you can offer corrections, please do.
Most of the fossils are shark’s teeth. Teeth from the same species of shark can look very different, depending on the age of the shark, the time the shark lived, and where in the mouth the tooth was, so I’m sure I have some of these wrong.
These were found on Caspersen Beach in Venice, FL. There’s a Miocene formation offshore that fossils wash out of and end up on the beach.
And now the birds….
There are lots of little shorebirds in Florida. They look the same at first glance, but usually you find there’s more than one species in the group.
Brown pelicans are very common in Florida, and pretty accustomed to people. They’ve been known to rob fishermen of their catches.
White pelicans don’t dive for fish like brown pelicans. They sit on the water like ducks.
I think this is the bird I knew as a gallinazo when I lived in Peru for a couple of years.
I guess upstate NY is outside their range. I see a ton of turkey vultures around here, but no black vultures.
Florida has an amazing number of heron-like birds. I guess they must be exploiting different ecological niches, even though they look similar.
I have no idea what kind of birds these are. It’s interesting how some of these wading birds fly with their necks tucked in, and some fly with them extended.
Limpkins supposedly live almost solely on apple snails.
That fish turned out to be too much for the heron. The heron struggled with it for awhile, but eventually the fish wiggled free and swam away.
This heron was more successful. It was flipping the fish around to get a better grip. I think the poor fish had already shuffled off this mortal coil by then.
We have great blue herons here in upstate NY, but they are not nearly as common. They’re everywhere in Florida. And also pretty tolerant of people. The heron in the top pic landed flapping and squawking amidst a bunch of startled beach-goers, and was unfazed as people called their children over to see and took out their cameras. Eventually, it made its way to the rocks visible on the left side of the photo, where it stood still for a long time, watching for fish.
These birds are from a drier terrain — Oscar Scherer State Park.
There’s a bald eagle nest clearly visible from the green trail. The eaglets had just fledged. You can see them both of them, in the branches above and to the right of the nest. The parents did not come around, perhaps trying to encourage the kids to hunt on their own.
And then there were these strange birds...
Florida’s wildlife and ecology is beautiful and amazing. I fear it will also be transient. It’s so….low. The entire state seems very vulnerable to sea level rise.
Hopefully there will be more than fossils left for future generations.