Shades of Blue, or Just Another Day in Paradise

Fall has definitely brought some beautiful weather to the Gulf Coast.



It's a little chilly in the morning for me, but who can really complain when this is the office?



Just check out all the shades of blue!



There is a little erosion in places, but that's normal this time of year... The gently sloping summer beach will return in time.



Can you see our last turtle nest by the sand fence? We hope it will hatch any day now.



The Blue Angels seem to be enjoying the fall as well.



What a thrill is must be to pilot those planes!

Opal Beach Birds -- There's More than Just a Flamingo!

The day dawned bright, clear and chilly for the biologists of Gulf Islands National Seashore. It was time for a bird survey on the south shore of the Santa Rosa area today.



There were the usual suspects -- sanderlings, willets, laughing gulls, and brown pelicans.



I had to peek at the north shore as well, to see how morning was going on the marsh.



The little blue herons and reddish egrets were together in one large flock,



though they did separate out.



Check out this feeding posture!

There were lots of piping plovers as well, hanging out about a mile east of Opal Beach. Yes, the flamingo was still there as well.



This is winter habitat for them, and the marshes are a great food source.



Sometimes, I think they come with just a little too much jewelry though.



That yellow flag has to hurt!

Message in a Bottle

I wasn't going to post today, but it was such an extraordinary day that I have to write. It was 68 this morning when I woke up, and foggy for hours. It felt great to be back on the beach enjoying it instead of shivering in pain, just trying to get my job done. I forgot what it was like to not hurt. In all, it was a pretty fun day!



I started the day doing a piping plover survey on Santa Rosa. The birds were hard to identify in fog so thick it made it impossible to wear my glasses, and nearly impossible to use my binoculars, but it was warm and that made all the difference in the world!

It was easy to see this wasn't a bird:



While trying to find my way around some dead trees west of Opal Beach, I ran into scattered piles of rusty metal.



The Navy used to use the park as a firing range, dropping bomblets from planes post WWII. These remains and unexploded shells may not be very dangerous, but I worry about all the tourists that visit the park, not knowing its history, so I called law enforcement.



DOD is out in the park now cleaning up the beach. I wonder how many park employees and others walked by before I did. Why didn't it get noticed and taken care of earlier? I'm hoping it was simply uncovered by recent wind activity and that no one would choose to ignore this stuff. ***

Once I got to Fort Pickens, I knew things would be better til I ran into this. You can't tell, but it's a dead dolphin:



A crazy great blue heron claimed a perch on an osprey pole:



A sunken boat emerged from the sands:



And a bottle was cast ashore on the Gulf coast -- that was the best part of the day! At first, I thought it was just trash in the bottle.



I spent a little time working on it, and uncorked this memory from the glass time capsule:



The picture itself was pretty old -- a fuzzy black and white with the blue ribbon photo-shopped into the image. The bathing suits also seem more modest and less colorful than what we wear today.



I wish I knew where the bottle went in the water. The cork reads 2006, so I know the message isn't very old, but it would be fun to learn where it came from!



Where are these young swimmers now?

*** The DOD responded and destroyed these remnants in a controlled explosion that same afternoon. I hope that's the last of those remains in the park!