crab trap – Dina's Wildlife Adventures

It was early March and too nice outside to be inside so I headed over to nearby Oldsmar pier to sit for a while. When I first got there the eagle was sitting high up in the pine tree. He left pretty quickly and then made several passes over the pier.

The tide was low and left a small sandy spot in between the mangroves. I was watching this cute dog find a stick and then turn around and show it to his human before heading in the water with it. I’m not sure if he was saying “Dad, look what I found” or “Dad, can I play with this stick”.

I think this is the first time I’ve seen someone catch a fish here.

The crab trapper guy was closer to the pier this morning. It’s fun to watch the pelicans follow him, hoping for a free handout. I was recently going through some old pictures, cleaning out files and saw that I had taken pictures of him in 2015 from Philippe Park. This guy has been doing it for a while. It would be a nice side gig but I’m not sure how many crabs he gets in this northern part of the bay. I wonder if he needs a helper. I would do it for free a few times. To sit out in the boat with the pelicans in the early morning would be great.

Right after Hurricane Irma came through someone had posted that they had seen a golden plover at Fort Desoto. I have never heard of a golden plover being anywhere near here and someone else had said they are never seen in Florida so this one must have gotten blown way off course from the storm. Everyone was questioning it until some expert birders had gotten pictures of it. After a couple of days I was able to run down to the park after work one night. I had about an hour before it got dark to find it. The bird was easy to find and close to were people had seen it days before. It was feeding along the rack line so I sat down on the beach and took some shots with my 300mm and extender. The little bird seemed curious and kept getting closer to me. I kept getting up and backing up. He looked okay and was running around feeding but I couldn’t help wondering if he was trying to tell me something. A few days later a rehabber picked him up and he’s been recuperating since then. I last heard he was doing much better and should be released soon. We get a lot of black bellied plovers in the same area. See below for recent pictures of those.

Two black bellied plovers above. The top is during the breeding season and the bottom is in the winter. The golden plover has a lot of brown on his head that shines.