Today on the Beach

I just came from my walk. Today I decided to walk down to the ocean. Why I don't go there every day is beyond me!! I guess it's just no fun going without Anna, but today the dogs and I walked down there and headed into the surf. The only real thing I hate about going to the beach is walking on that dune sand!!! It makes it tough!! But I think if I keep doing it, I will get ready for mountain climbing again. And every route has it's downs. I cannot walk anywhere without coming across some obstacles! Anyway, I think I am going to do it more often. hehe! I love the ocean, and it is practically right out my back door! Anyway, the dogs and I went and walked about a mile down the surf, turned and came back home.

The best part of today's walk was going along and seeing huge flocks of birds!! I think I must have seen about a half dozen different kinds of birds today. I saw royal terns, western gulls, dolphin gulls (which I didn't think were even found here!), curlews, american golden plovers, killdeer and what I believe to have been least sandpipers. I think they were least sandpipers!! They were tiny, but I came home and looked them up and the colors were all wrong. These were light tan in color, almost grayish-tan, with black legs. The color more matched the little stint. A close relative, but not found in this country. Not even on migration. They are strictly an old world species. As for the dolphin gulls, I thought they were only found in the southern hemisphere, definitely not here. But there they were plain as day!! Blackish wings, gray body, light mantle, red beak and legs!! How they got here I don't know. They've never been seen in this area! They traveled a long way from the Antarctic circle! There was a small flock of about 10-13 of them, among a small flock of the larger western gulls.

I kinda wonder how killdeer got their name? LOL! They have nothing to do with deer. They're tiny plovers. Well, either way I want to go back, see if I can see all those wonderful, beautiful birds again. Maybe next time, take a camera and see if I can get some snap-shots. Pretty soon here we should start seeing pelicans. They are enormous!! They kinda scare me! Especially with the dogs being so tiny. They might mistake the dogs for rats and try to eat them!! EEK!!