Tampilkan postingan dengan label Cape Canaveral National Seashore. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Cape Canaveral National Seashore. Tampilkan semua postingan
Amazed by a Forster's Tern
Standing on the dune along the Cape Canaveral National Seashore, I watched a foraging Forster's tern working the water just beyond the breaking waves. It flew parallel to the beach, heading north into the wind, looking down at the water for the silver flicker of sunlight reflecting off fish scales.
Catching sight of just such a flash, it stops, planting one wingtip in the invisible air, then cartwheeling into a dive.
Down like a lead arrow, bill-first it plunges. Splash!
Springing up from one Earth element into another, the tern shakes itself, sending small jewels of wet back to the foam. Nothing small and silvery wriggles in its bill. Nothing to show for such mastery of air and water.
And the tern turns again into the wind, pumping forward on white wings dusted with gray.
I watch from the sand—earthbound—slack-jawed and stirred at the wonder of it all.
Ruddy Winter Turnstone
Ruddy turnstone in winter plumage.This afternoon, while frolicking on the beach at Cape Canaveral National Seashore with daughter Phoebe, I snapped off a few shots of the foraging ruddy turnstones. None of them was in breeding plumage, but then—I forget myself—it's January! They SHOULD be in winter plumage.
Not a whole lot of bird photography on this trip, at least not yet. Though, Phoebe got some nice shots for me of a loggerhead shrike at Viera. Here's one of them:
Loggerhead shrike at Viera Wetlands, FL. 1/27/10 by Phoebe Linnea Thompson
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