Florida, Day 1

 I flew to Florida to spend 10 days with Jane and Jan in a Fort Myers Beach condo. They are there for the whole month of February. I was lucky that the most recent winter storm missed both my house and the Rockford airport the day before. Many flights were cancelled at O’Hare, and my flight was packed to the gills, possibly with people rerouted from Chicago.

On my first full day, we frittered away most of the morning. I made bacon and eggs with mushrooms, onions, and tomatoes for brunch about 10:00. Jane and I went to the beach in front of the condo after that. I noticed numerous holes in the sand, but saw only one small crab.

Little crab on the beach

Later in the week, I discovered that if I stood still for not even a whole minute, the crabs would emerge from all over. One little vibration sent them scurrying back down. I also saw that these crabs were the kind where the male has one giant claw. Most of them seemed to be lefties. The claw is for waving to females (“Hey, baby! Hey, baby!”) and pounding on other males. It is useless for feeding. The crabs worked the sand for whatever it is they eat with their small claw.

There was a snowy egret in the lagoon between the condo and the beach. There are too many species of egrets, if you ask me. They are hard to tell apart. The snowy has black legs with yellow feet, a black bill, and yellow lores (tissue around the eye). The little egret also has a black bill, black legs and yellow feet, but has dark lores during the non-breeding season. It gets yellow lores during breeding. Both the little and snowy egret gets head and breast plumes during the breeding season, but the little egret’s tail plumes are straight while the snowy egret’s plumes are “lacy.” The great egret is larger (duh), has black legs and feet, and a yellow bill. The cattle egret is smaller than the snowy egret (therefore a lot smaller than the great egret), has black legs and feet, and a yellow bill. To make it even more confusion, the great blue heron, reddish egret, and little blue heron all have white forms. GAAA.

Snowy egret--see the yellow lores?

The lagoon had an abundance of minnows or fry. (Minnows are small species of fish; fry are baby fish). I didn’t see anything large. Could a snowy egret survive on tiny fish?

Wee fish

Jane sat on the beach while I walked south. Seeing nothing of interest, I turned back. Jane and I then walked north. Jane took a picture of me.

Me on the beach. I had to crop out my pasty white legs.

There were several shorebirds, such as these ruddy turnstones.

Ruddy turnstones

I think these are sanderlings. I thought they looked cute resting on the sand with their bills straight down.

Sanderlings at rest

Most exciting was a flock of royal terns.

Royal terns

I thought this was a herring gull, but when I looked closely at the picture, I saw that it was a ring-billed gull. I think this is the first time I've seen one (that I noticed).

Ring-billed gull

Some of the birds were bathing in the lagoon.

Bath time!

We didn’t stay out too long. It was hot in the sun, not that it wasn’t a pleasant change from Northern Illinois. We had our usual happy hour with the sunset followed by chicken tacos on the lanai. At dusk, a man came to the edge of the lagoon with a cast net, apparently trying to catch bait. He made throwing the net look easy. I wondered if it really was.