A few Florida birds

Lots of people have written about Florida's magnificent bird life, but I of course cannot resist adding to the blog entries on this topic, given how many delightful avians are found in the Sunshine State. Having spent part of my childhood at the beach, I immediately associate Florida with shore birds, and there were plenty of those.

I've not made identifications of everyone on the beach in back of our motel, but watching the various waterfront skitterers made for great entertainment 

though not for this unfortunate shellfish..

Some of the shorebirds were actually in the middle of town, enjoying themselves in the fresh water of a city park. I did not expect to see an anhinga drying its wings in the middle of a city

and certainly not a snowy egret in another part of the same park. The snowy, like its larger cousin the great egret 

was hunted nearly to extinction early in the last century because of its beautiful feathers. 

Sandhill cranes have become fairly common in many parts of Florida. A cousin told us that the cranes have actually become a nuisance in their neighborhood; they're everywhere, attacking their reflections in sliding glass doors. Of course, no cranes materialized anyplace I was, leaving me still craneless. We did, however, see flocks of white ibises. These were grazing in the lawn strip outside a CVS in downtown Melbourne.

And no visit to central Florida is complete without flamingoes.