Beach and Pool and Lots of Birds

Today was an excellent day full of some of our favorite activities: walking on the beach, swimming in a pool, and watching lots of birds. We drove through Tarpon Springs, a Greek sponging community, which was very cute but charged to park, so we didn't get out to walk around. We did see a boat with sponges drying on it. Then we drove to Honeymoon Island, which has a state park with a wonderful beach. We walked along the beach for almost an hour. Here we are at a stopping point on the causeway out to the island.

There were such interesting birds at the beach. Check out these terns (?) with very large beaks.

A gull sits in front of a trio of sandpipers.

Here is a shot of the beach.

And here I am in front of the waves.

There were a couple of little islands we could see from the beach. There's a ferry out to one of them, but we didn't take it.

We saw a couple of these things washed up on the beach. Sponges? Corals?

Here is a brown pelican in flight.

And here is a pair of mourning doves.

Another view of the beach.

And we saw an egret from the causeway.

We met our neighbor at a place on the water for lunch. She took a photo of me with my adult ice cream drink, and I sent it to my coworkers because it was a snow day back home. School was canceled.

Then we went to my neighbor's winter house, where there is a pond abutting her backyard. There were lots of birds there. Here is an anhinga.

These are whistling ducks. They really do whistle. I just love their bright pink bills.

There was a coot hanging out with them and pretending to be one of them.

The anhingas swam around in the pond and then came out to dry their wings.

This is the great blue heron who was not quite in focus in the foreground of the last photo.

This whistling duck appears to be doing a dance.

This is another anhinga.

And here is one swimming in the water. They dive a lot and are hard to photograph while swimming.

Here is the coot again.

This is a cormorant who was hanging out. There had been two of them sitting side by side.

This egret looks smaller than the ones we usually see back home.

Here is a closeup of a whistling duck. Look at that bright pink bill!

This is the heron again.

Here is a turtle.

Here is one of the anhingas.

And here it is with the egret, which had just walked by it - they ignored each other.

Then we walked to the pool, and on the way we saw this Muscovy duck, but we didn't have the good camera so I took this photo with my cell phone. The duck was so close to us! We thought at first that it was a statue in someone's yard.

The pool at our neighbor's complex is so lovely, as warm as bathwater. We swam for nearly an hour. This made up for all the pools at our hotels that have been outside and too cold to swim in. Last night there was a pool and what looked like a hot tub, but the "hot tub" was cold too! What a letdown! Our neighbor said that was like someone showing you an ice cream sundae and then not letting you have it, and I said I thought it was more like someone giving you an ice cream sundae, but then you take a bite of it and it's actually mashed potatoes. She said, "Yeah, it's like that."

Here are some photos I forgot to post earlier. On St. George Island I got the perfect beach ring. It's glass and not very expensive, but very pretty.

We went to a Publix grocery store last night because I needed blueberries and soy milk, and we saw this calla lily with double blooms.

And they also had these pale pink strawberries! They called them "pineberries" because they are supposed to taste like pineapple.

 

Because I'm bougie, I bought them, and Travalon and I ate them. He liked them so much that this evening he asked if we had any left, but I said we had eaten them all this morning so they wouldn't have to sit in the hot car. We can probably get more while we're down here, but I have never seen them in Wisconsin. Our neighbor says they also have pink pineapples around here, so we'll have to keep an eye out for those. I am always curious to try interesting produce.

Famous Hat