Gary
Furry Birds at My Feeder
Cardinals, chickadees, red-winged blackbirds, and doves are some of the birds that fly to my backyard feeders to feast on sunflower, millet and other seeds. Every day a big gray furry bird with a long tail and big dark eyes visits the feeders to devour the sun flower seeds. There are conflicts between the feathered […]
No Stone Left Unturned
Walking along the shore of Cocoa Beach, I see a bird foraging in the wake of the waves washing up on the sandy beach. It is the beautiful ruddy turnstone. In the shallow wake water it flips shells, small pebbles and natural debris to find mollusks, worms and other invertebrates. Although you can find this […]
The Skimming Black Skimmer
Black skimmers are common on many Florida beaches. When this bird forages, it flies near the ocean’s surface with its longer knife-like lower mandible slicing the water to snatch small fish to eat. When its lower bill comes into contact with a fish, the upper bill snaps down seizing it. Sounds like a good science […]
Giant Fleas at Cocoa Beach!
Sand fleas, the size of your thumb, live in the wake zone where ocean waves break along the sandy beach. These creatures are not really fleas; they are a species of crab called mole crab or more appropriately named the Atlantic sand crab. Mole crabs live buried in the sand facing the direction of the […]
Ghosts of Cocoa Beach
Walking along the shore of the Atlantic Ocean at Cocoa Beach, Florida, I sense something crawling on the sand out of the corner of my eye. I stop, stoop down, and survey the sandy beach, but I see nothing. I continue my walk and again catch a glimpse of something scurrying on the sand, but […]
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