Beach

This morning at the beach. The gull had caught a crab and was taking it away to eat it somewhere unmolested by his buddies who were trying to take it from him.

There are surprisingly few birds either on the beach itself, or on the island in the wetlands along the wildlife loop that we take on our bicycles to get to the beach. Migration is late? Or early and they've all moved further south? Who knows??? I've seen a fair number of great egrets, a couple of great blue herons, a flock of cattle egrets, some snowy egrets, one tricolored heron, one white ibis, Canada geese, no ducks except on Chincoteague walking the streets, a few sanderlings, one black-bellied plover, one semi-palmated plover, royal terns, a few least terns, herring gulls, laughing gulls, ring-billed gulls, a fair number of double-crested cormorants, one osprey at a very great distance in a tree, and the bald eagle. Plus a prairie warbler (!), some chickadees, cardinals, crows, grackles, starlings, house sparrows, and a blue grosbeak. But nothing like the swarms of shorebirds that I've seen in past years. Not a black skimmer in sight, and not a single ruddy turnstone. I guess all years are different!