Cold and windy at Honeymoon Island

Posted on February 10, 2020 by dinajohnston

A lone ring billed gull braving the wind on the beach.

A few things on the beach including a large sea sponge in the first shot. The horseshoe crab and starfish were still alive and the tide was coming in fast so they would be gone soon.

A few people were out trying to surf but there really wasn’t any big waves. For a while I watched them sit on their boards. This guy tried once but didn’t stay up long. There just wasn’t enough wind in the gulf.

I came out to Honeymoon Island to walk on the nature trail in the woods but stopped by the beach before leaving. It was drizzling on and off so there were very few people there except for the ones bobbing up and down on their surfboards. Even on a cold windy day it was fun to be out on the beach.

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After the storm

Posted on February 7, 2016 by dinajohnston

We had a big storm come through the area on Friday and then next morning I headed out to Fort Desoto. It was low tide and the beach was full of things we don’t see that often. Lots of live shells. We mostly see broken ones.

I think this crab took over this empty conch shell.

This starfish was missing a few limbs.

The beach was full of these. They were all empty though.

Horseshoe crabs were on the beach.

Another critter taking up residence in an empty shell.

The beach was full of the above. Some kind of sea plant? Looks like corn on the cob husks to me.

A beautiful cool morning at Fort Desoto Park.

Shine the Divine

Fort De Soto on Christmas day

Posted on January 13, 2014 by dinajohnston

Ruddy turnstone convention on the jetti.

This one was on the pier.

His feet were tangled up together. He was flying around pretty good so I’m not sure how you could catch him.

My first common loon sighting of the winter. There were two of them swimming around in a lagoon.

They are not common at all.

A cormorant was going after a fish on someone’s pole.

He’s thinking he has an easy meal.

He was giving it a good tug but in the end the fisherman was able to pull it up with the fish intact.

Although later, he did manage to steal a fish from someone who wasn’t paying attention.

Someone pulled up a starfish. Back he went into the water.

I checked on the old owl’s nest from last winter. There was an owl sitting there sleeping. Hopefully there’s an egg underneath it. Last year the owl couple had two babies but only one survived.

A great blue heron flying by.

We had a big late breakfast and wasn’t going to eat dinner until much later on Christmas day. We were tempted to spend the day on the couch in our pj’s watching old Christmas movies but it was just to gorgeous outside. Sunny and 70 degrees. My sister was visiting for the week from South Dakota and she wanted to get outside and walk around so we headed to Fort De Soto. It was a perfect afternoon. We walked around both piers and looked around at the North beach but it was too windy for any shorebirds. Perfect day off.

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