Goodbye snowbirds, see you next year!

Now that the snowbirds have started to head back home, there is a lot less traffic to maneuver.  We went to our favorite part of the beach this morning and found even more erosion than we'd previously seen.  In some areas, the sand has disappeared all the way up to the vegetation in the yards of the beach front homes.   Normally, we would be walking on the higher level of sand.  This doesn't bode well for the sea turtle nests this year.  Hopefully, we won't have to weather another hurricane before the sand can be replenished.

There were plenty of brown pelicans fishing in the clear water.  This one waved hello!

The osprey below had a precarious nest across the top of a tree.  They aren't known for their neat and tidy nests, though!

We drove through Ding even though it wasn't at low tide.  We saw a couple of birds.  This osprey was busy with his bath.

As sometimes happens, I found better photos back at home!  Our neighbor let me take some photos from her upper deck, so that I could get some closeups of the osprey nest.  There are 2 babies this year.

The little orange-eyed babies are starting to lose their fuzzy down and getting some feathers.

This male anhinga appears to be sitting on the nest, but the pretty egg isn't underneath him.  I hope it isn't because it is not viable.  Last year, there was an anhinga nest and a couple of yellow-crowned night heron nests on this limb out over the water.  This year, it just appears to be this one nest so far.  We've seen the yellow-crowned night herons in the tree, so hopefully there will be a nest soon.

This mallard duck is the king of the yard most days.  He has a harem of several females that he chases around.

These next two photos were taken from my back deck.  The swallow-tailed kite was in a tree a couple of houses away, across the lake.  I watched her preen her feathers.

And then . . . she had a gentleman caller!