
Before I left Fort Desoto Park on a recent Saturday morning, I headed over to the East Beach turnaround area which faces the Sunshine Skyway bridge. I thought I’d check out the little beach area to see if there were any interesting shorebirds there (still looking for that avocet). This is what I saw as I was driving toward the beach so I know there would be no birds here. It wasn’t super windy but just enough that these guys could kiteboard.

They were cruising all across the water.

I got out of my car and walked down to the water to get some closer shots as the guys were coming by. When I got down to the beach area (it was low tide) I saw the below.

Thousands of little fiddler crabs covered the one corner of the beach.

It’s hard to get them close up. They are very skittish and start running for the mangroves when they see people.

As I walked out on the sand, they all started marching away.

He was shaking his claw at me like “Stay off our beach”.

I was thinking “If I was a bird, I’d be on this beach chowing on some crab legs.”

They have pretty colors.

The sand was also covered with big jellyfish globs.
You just never know what you’re going to find at Fort Desoto on a Saturday morning.
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