Tag: puffer

Up close with some zoo animals.

On By dinajohnstonIn zoo animals4 Comments

When my sisters were here in February we went to the zoo one morning. Instead of using a coupon to get in at a lower price, I paid full price for the “pay for the day and come back all year for free” ticket. This is a good place to get in an hour walk. I was traveling light on this morning with only my phone.

It was fun watching the gibbons fly across the ropes.

Hanging out with a yellow billed stork in the aviary.

An otter swims by.

A view of the manatees from up top on the outside observation deck.

A wild Mom mallard and her babies were eating some of the manatee’s lettuce.

I went underneath and saw them through the glass. It’s nice that the underwater viewing area is air conditioned so I stayed a little longer than I should have.

Up close with a puffer.

They had a dinosaur exhibit for a few weeks and since I was there early on a weekday morning I walked through the exhibit. I’m sure there was a line to get through it on the weekends. It made for a fun walk.

 

All of the birds were eating breakfast

On By dinajohnstonIn bird photography2 Comments

I was out for a walk at the end of September and the tide was super low. I could see the gulls eating some type of puffer fish that was stranded in the grass beds. Although I never did actually see the gulls eating them, they just kept picking them up and playing with them. Maybe they were waiting for them to deflate.

An osprey cruises by with a tiny fish in his feet.

The little blue heron was busy eating.

There were several snowy egrets looking for food.They look so pretty against the blue water.

This boat must have lost anchor during Hurrincane Ian. It’s still there, stranded near the Dunedin causeway. It’s in pretty bad shape at this point.

A sad day at my favorite beach

On By dinajohnstonIn Florida animals6 Comments

Walking out on the beach this past Saturday morning seemed like any other Saturday morning. There wasn’t a smell (since the wind was coming from the east or other side of the park). At first glance the beach seemed clean but weirdly void of any people. As I got closer to the water, that’s when I saw the signs of red tide. Red tide is a naturally occurring thing that happens in the gulf when the algae blooms and releases toxins that kill the sea life.  The last big red tide event happened here in 2005. It was devastating to the sea life that year. Beaches south of us in Sarasota and Fort Myers have had red tide issues since early this year. It just reached my beach in the last few weeks. I had heard mixed reviews on how bad the dead fish were at the beach so I headed out to see what was going on. The day before, the park rangers had cleaned up 6 miles of beaches full of dead fish but fish keep coming flowing back on the beach with the waves.

Here is some scientific information on red tide.

This was the first time I had seen so many different crabs on the beach along the water. These camouflage crabs will eventually make their way back into the water. The ranger told me that crabs in general are not as affected by the red tide but it was weird to see them on the beach.

Lots of different ones on the beach including this crab that had a barnacle living on it.

While our beach has had a mild case of red tide so far, many of the beaches south of us had record numbers of dead dolphins and manatees turning up this summer.

SkyWatch Friday