Mar. 22, 2015 - Florida Winter Photos-2

When we stay in Florida during the winter, I like to hike along the Gulf-side beach in St. George Island State Park. I can almost always find Snowy Plovers among the shorebirds that gather along the shore. At 6¼ inches long, they are the smallest plovers we see in the United States. Because Snowies are a threatened species, many of them are banded like this one so researchers can keep track of their movements. This bird has started to molt into breeding plumage; see the darker feathers on the forehead, behind the eye, and around the neck.

PloverSnowyGeorgeIslandStatePark20150222

Snowy Plovers are very pale which helps them blend in with the sand on the beaches. They can be very hard to spot unless they start moving. This one is still in winter plumage (compare it to the previous photo.)

PloverSnowyGeorgeIslandStatePark20150222

Here is another Snowy Plover and it has fully molted into breeding plumage. See the totally black patches on the forehead, behind the eye, and around the neck. Notice that this bird has no leg bands.

PloverSnowyGeorgeIslandStatePark20150222

The Brown Thrasher is a fairly large bird measuring 11½ inches long. Most of the time it prefers to remain hidden in the brush so I was pleased to find this one out in the open. I took this photo at LaFayette Park in Apalachicola, Florida. Some Brown Thrashers are year-round residents of the southeastern states. Others migrate north in the summer to breed in the eastern 2/3 of the United States.

ThrasherBrownLaFayetteParkApalachicola20150223

The morning I was at LaFayette Park, it was very humid and foggy. I try to find spider webs on days like that because they are covered with dew and look like strings of pearls.

SpiderDewCoatedLaFayetteParkApalachicola20150223

This is the view from the top of the St. George Island lighthouse. You can see the mainland along the far horizon. The bridge in this photo is 4 miles long and leads to the town of Eastpoint on the mainland coast. I was part of a group that climbed to the top of the lighthouse on Feb. 3, 2015. That date was significant because the sun would set in the western sky only 2 minutes before the full moon rose in the eastern sky. The plan was to photograph both events from the high vantage point of the lighthouse. As you can see, clouds covered the entire area so we got to see neither the sun setting nor the moon coming up. Oh well, I’ll just have to try again next year.

ViewfromthetoplookingNorthSt.GeorgeIslandLighthouse20150203