Sundown on Gandy beach

Sandwich tern taking a bath.

How many different types of shorebirds are on this beach?

Skimmer doing what he does - skimming for food.

Industrial strength great blue heron.

Cormorant condos.

I stopped by Gandy beach on the way home one day last week. I left work late so I barely had any time before it got dark. There were still a handful of people there. The reason the skimmers in the above picture were flying over my head was because there were 2 guys there on 3 wheeler dirt bikes. They thought it was fun to drive up to the shoreline and scare the birds away. As I was headed for the end of the beach where most of the birds were, they flew past me and drove through the shorebirds trying to go to sleep. They knew I was not happy. How would they like it if I came to their house and drove a dirt bike through at 6am and woke them up?

Otherwise, it was a nice night out but clouds moved in just as the sun was going down so no sunset shots on this trip.

Action at the fishing pier

As usual, dolphins were everywhere at the fishing pier.


Snowy egrets fighting over bait fish territory.

Sandwich tern in flight.

Royal tern in flight. The above sandwich tern has a black beak with a yellow tip. The royal tern has an orange beak. When the royal tern is not flying, it looks like it has a toupee on his head.

A quick stop at the Fort Desoto fishing pier provided a lot of sun but not too many birds. I'm not sure why the fishing piers are surrounded by so much bait fish. It does bring in the terns and gulls. They were all flying around the pier and snatching the bait fish. The usual dolphins were also swimming around. It was sunny and hot so I did not stay too long. I headed down to the beach for a swim with the hubby.

Mating season on the beach

The signs are up. The big nesting areas are roped off. Fort Desoto has roped off a good portion of the north beach for nesting birds this year. The tons of locals who frequent that beach aren't going to be happy.

Sandwich terns doing a mating dance.

Sandwich terns getting busy.

The terns bring fish to entice the mate. It looks like the one on the right wasn't impressed.

Laughing gulls mating. She looks at me like "I'm going to need a cigarette."

It's mating season on Fort Desoto beach. The beach was full of gulls and terns getting down to business. Soon they will be hiding out nesting and fighting off the blackbirds and bigger gulls who will try and steal the eggs. Please, if you are visiting any Florida beaches, stay out of the roped off areas. It's easy to not see a nest and step on one or scare the parent into abandoning the nests.