Beach & Birds

On Friday, February 12, our last day in Florida, the temperature rose to about 70 degrees (21 Celsius). The wind was blowing, though, causing us to seek shelter behind some rocks at Fred Howard Beach. As you can see by the following pictures, others had the same idea.

The first picture was taken half an hour or so after we'd arrived at the beach, when we realized the beach area was shrinking as the tide was coming in.

The following picture was taken about 20 minutes later, and you can see that the beach area was shrinking fast.

It wasn't long before we had to find another place to sit and read. The tide was coming in there, too, of course; but it was a broader expanse of beach, giving us a better chance of being able to stay longer without getting our feet wet.

Because there was more shore at our new location, there were more shore birds to distract me from my reading.

Willet

 The next three pictures feature a Marbled Godwit, which was a new one for me. A gorgeous bird.

I included this last picture so you could see how deeply one of the Marbled Gotwits was plunging its bill into the mud in search of food. I read that they sometimes probe so deeply that the whole head is under water.

It was a fun day at the beach, the best of the whole week. The incoming tide never reached us, leaving plenty of shallow water to entice several shore birds to feed in the shallows. And the Marbled Godwits were the icing on the cake.