January 18, 2009 - Portuguese Man-o-War, Florida birds, Gulf Coast sunset

Diana and I visited a coastal beach at Cape San Blas, Florida. I found several Portuguese Man-o-War which had washed up on the sand. They are often (incorrectly) thought of as jellyfish. But, they actually consist of several colonies of organisms which function together. Each of the colonies is so specialized in the function it performs that it needs the others in order to survive. The man-o-war lives at the surface of the warm water oceans with the air bladder that you see in this photo floating on the surface. The air bladder can be up to 10 inches long.

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The other parts of the Portuguese Man-o-War hang in the water below the bladder. They have long tentacles which have stinging thread-like structures on them. Here is another specimen and it shows the dried up tentacles wrapped around the bladder and on the sand. The average length of these tentacles is 3 feet but they can grow to be 165 feet long. The tentacles sting and kill small fish and shrimp which are then digested by one of the other parts of the Man-o-War. The tentacles can give a painful sting to a human and this can happen even if the animal has been dead for several days. Meat tenderizer is sometimes used to help relieve the pain from a sting.

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Here is a female Northern Cardinal that I photographed at Cape San Blas. As in many other bird species, she is not as colorful as the male. However, her more subtle colors are beautiful in their own way.

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This male Eastern Towhee sat up and posed for me at Salinas Park, also located along Florida’s Gulf Coast. Towhees found in the Southeastern United States have a pale eye, like this one. Those found further north have a red eye.

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One of the benefits of being near the water is watching the sunsets and sunrises. Here is a sunset view from a house two doors away from where we are staying on St. George Island.

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