A few of the regulars at the pier; the famous great blue heron/great egret hybrid, a ruddy turnstone, a reddish egret, lots of snowy egrets always looking for a handout and great blue heron and reddish egret fighting over space on the railing.
Skimmers were skimming the bait fish.
This reddish egret was bored with me.
Shots of a beautiful morning at the pier. These were taken in early September, before Irma.
The black bellied plovers are really pretty in the summer.
And so are the ruddy turnstones.
The sanderlings are also sporting their summer colors.
Grumpy snowy egret.
Sleepy cormorant.
At the fishing pier at Fort Desoto.
These two female red breasted mergansers are still hanging around the fishing pier. They should be north for the summer by now.
A ruddy turnstone on the rocks.
A royal tern brings her a fish. Since she’s eating it, I guess they are an official couple.
The laughing gulls are pretty this time of year.
Having a conversation about something. All of the gulls are pairing up.
The juvenile reddish egret is still hanging around the pier.
Two baby osprey on the smokestack tower nest.
Someone got their snack stolen. Or maybe, the bird is being paid to advertise.
Saturday morning at Fort Desoto.
A ruddy turnstone staring at me.
The usual oystercatcher walking along the water.
A willet walking by.
These godwits and willets were trying to sleep in the water.
I tried not to wake anyone up. They looked so peaceful.
The above are all black bellied plovers hanging around the marsh.
A sandwich tern fly by.
A handful of shorebirds that were hanging out at Fort Desoto in late September.
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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I was standing on the beach taking pictures of a ruddy turnstone when the long-billed curlew flew right in front of me.
I never get this lucky. He was looking at me like “I’m ready for my photo shoot.”
He already had sand all the way up his beak so he’s been feeding.
I sat down on the sand and watched him dig.
Success. A little sandy crab came out of the hole.
After swallowing that one, he continued to dig.
This one he flipped up in the air like popcorn shrimp.
Still digging. What a pig!
He seemed to want to show me this one up close. He started walking toward me with it in his beak.
He flipped it up to swallow it. After this crab, he started wandering off down the beach so I left him to his feeding.
This ruddy turnstone wanted to get in on the crab action as well. He walked right in front of me showing off his prize.
Another Saturday morning on Fort Desoto beach.
Hubby and I stopped by the Sunshine Skyway fishing pier to look for the rare kittiwake that had been sighted there earlier that week. We looked, along with several other birders, for over an hour with no luck. I did get a lot of “birds in flight” practice that morning.
I realized after I cropped this up that the royal tern had a hook in his beak. This was a common sight around the pier.
I saw another royal tern on the other side of the pier with a hook pulling on his skin. He was trying to swallow a big fish. He got the fish down but not without doing more damage to the beak area. I’m not sure how someone would be able to catch this one. He was flying pretty good and stayed on the other side of the pier that you can’t get to.
Another royal tern with a fish.
He flew right over my head. No hooks here.
This common loon has a hook in it’s beak.
This loon was showing off. This has been a banner winter for loons in the Tampa bay area. We only get them in the winter here around Tampa and last winter I only saw 2.
Back down for another fish.
Ruddy turnstone posing on an oyster bed.
A view of the Sunshine Skyway bridge from the rest stop. The bridge takes you from St. Petersburg over the bay to Sarasota and south Florida. This new bridge opened in 1985 after a freighter crashed into the old one doing enough damage to close it down back in 1980. Part of the old bridge is still used as a fishing pier.
The couple of times that I’ve been out on the fishing pier, it has been packed with people fishing. The birds, including gulls, terns and pelicans, hang out here to fish as well. They also like to steal the bait fish from the fisherman. The biggest problem is that the birds will go after a fish that is already on a hook and the birds get hooked too. There are educational boards all over the fishing pier with instructions on how to reel in a hooked bird and take the hook out. It is clear to never cut the line. The bird will die with a hook and fishing line trailing behind it. After spending time on the pier, you will get the impression that most people don’t care and will just cut the line. I say most because there are a few people out there with a soul and will help release the bird the right way. With the amount of birds flying around with hooks, most just cut the line. The local bird rescue and rehab company has been having financial problems and has stopped taking in injured birds. A new group of volunteers are working on starting up a new rescue group. With all of the birders out on this pier recently looking for the kittiwake, there’s been a growing concern on how to help out at the pier.
There’s so much more to this story. I’ll save that for a later date. I still stand behind my thought “No fishing should be allowed on fishing piers.” Like that would ever happen in Florida.
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