In early October I heard there was a juvenile flamingo at Fred Howard Park in Tarpon Springs. It was late afternoon and I decided not to wait until the next morning to head to the park so I packed up and drove over even though it looked like it was going to rain.
On the back side of the little beach there were tons of shorebirds. As I was looking for the flamingo (which I didn’t find) I saw 2 avocets standing alone near the shorebirds. Even though I had just seen 19 of them at Fort Desoto a few weeks before I was still excited to see these 2. They stuck pretty close together.
It was getting late in the day and the laughing gulls were starting their bedtime baths.
A few of the other shorebirds nearby included a Forster’s tern, a ruddy turnstone and a dowitcher.
A great blue heron flies by.
I was hoping the sun would peak out when it got late but it didn’t look like that was going to happen so I left. I did manage to see that juvenile flamingo on another trip so more on that later.
