Today we went down and drove the beach here north to the jetty. Since it was early in the morning as well as cool and foggy there were very few people to disturb the birds. I got to see some of my favorite gulls and terns. This is one of the many Sandwich Terns that we saw.
There were a few Great Black-backed Gulls, all sub-adults.
Here’s a nice adult Herring Gull.
Royal Terns were the most common terns.
This was the real treat, a breeding plumage Lesser Black-backed gull.
The most common shorebirds were Ruddy Turnstones. There were also a few Sanderlings and Willets.
From the beach we headed over to Sugar Mill Park to look for plants and butterflies. Along the way we stopped to see one of the breeding Red Junglefowl.
At Sugar Mill Park we saw a tremendous number of plants, a few butterflies and these two insects.
The insect on the left is a robber fly that looks quite like a bumble bee. It had just caught a honey bee that it was in the process of eating. The wasp on the right is a Mexican paper wasp female building a nest.
More tomorrow…
Michael's Place 