Florida (Part Two) - Ponce Inlet

This is a continuation of Florida posts. This is the second post, the first full day we spent in Florida.

After the lighthouse, we went to a nearby beach. For fun I made this on google maps, so you can get feel for the area:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zw5OY-QNgfx0.kqp4ETXevD9M&usp=sharing

There was a beach there, with a jetty that extended about 300 m into the ocean, and boulders go out a kilometer to break the waves for boats (I think).
Now for an onslaught of photos, some of the photos are William's, even though they all say Josiah Van Egmond.

Boat-tailed Grackle (lifer!)

Here's a group of Black Skimmers with a few gulls in among them.  There were large groups of terns and skimmers on the beach, 4 lifers right there, Royal Tern, Sandwich Tern, Black Skimmer and Laughing Gull.

Black Skimmers

Sandwich Tern

These Ruddy Turnstones were about halfway down the jetty.

They gave us a good photoshoot. This picture rather looks like it has a broken neck.

Ruddy Turnstone

Most of them were standing on one leg.

Ruddy Turnstone

Ruddy Turnstone resting in the sun

When William, Matthew and I were out on the jetty, we saw a sea turtle! It was pretty exciting.

Green Sea Turtle

Here are the terns. The ones with orange beaks are Royal Terns, the ones with black and yellow-tipped bills are Sandwich terns. It actually took a while to identify them. At first without looking at the bird book, I thought they were Caspian Terns, then after studying them with the bird book (and trying to keep the pages from flipping from the wind) I finally figured out they were Royal and Sandwich.
There is a Laughing Gull in the center of this photo as well, and Black Skimmers in the background.

Tern flock

City across the water.

Royal Tern

And of course, good ol' Ring-billed Gulls.

Ring-billed Gull

And the flock goes up!

Black Skimmers

There were some tiny shorebirds on the beach, quite friendly, Sanderlings.

Sanderling

This is one of my favorite photos I took there.

Sanderling

SHARKS!! Nope, just dolphins. There was a group of them coming up and down in the water on one side of the jetty, pretty neat. Not in Sea World.. we didn't do any of that sort of stuff, and wild animals we saw (which I much prefer). :)

Dolphin

Don't worry, not a broken neck, just stretching.

Sandwich Tern

The black backs of Black Skimmers

Black Skimmers

Royal Terns

Sanderling

Brown Pelicans were very common, here is a young one.

Brown Pelican

You can see how much longer the bottom of the beak is than the top, that's because skimmers skim over the water, with its beak scooping up water.

Black Skimmer

A Brown Pelican landed on a post on the beach, a fantastic photo opportunity, usually they were just flying by or far out in the water.

Brown Pelican

The Herring Gulls were much bigger than all the other gull, terns and skimmers, they really stood out.

Herring Gulls

Black Skimmer in flight

First winter Black Skimmer

Ruddy Turnstone

And this photo, one of my favorites! I love Brown Pelicans now, they're such nice birds.

Brown Pelican

That may have been a photo overdose, but I hope you enjoyed. If you haven't seen the previous post click here
Share if you want and don't share if you don't want, but it will be appreciated if you do! Please comment, I always love getting comments.

Stay tuned for the next post! There's plenty more nice photos to come.