Seeking the Scrub Jay

“Who knew?!” seems to be the theme of the first week here. Yesterday was a great example: who knew there was a gigantic National Seashore adjacent to a wonderful National Wildlife Refuge adjacent to the Cape Canaveral space launch place?

We'd heard that this was the place to see shorebirds. Hope is a serious birder, so she had a whole list of potential sightings. I only hoped for a wood stork, because we'd seen one the day before, but I didn't get a good photo:

Rule of thumb: if you take the camera along, you won't see a thing. If you leave it in the car, great sightings arise. Rule Two: the iPhone camera just doesn't measure up. 

We had a terrific day at an amazing place, acres and acres and acres of water and little bits of land.

And lots of water birds: my favorite spoonbills:

Nearly the whole range of herons and egrets, including the gorgeous tricolor:

New to me and spectacular: the anhinga, with its snake-like, tremendously flexible neck and massive wingspread. We saw one catch a fish and try to prep-cook it by swinging it back and forth until it passed out and was more swallowable; unfortunately for the bird, he flipped his dinner a little too hard and it went sailing back into the water. Like their close relatives the cormorants, they spread their wings to dry.

Top of the list for Hope: the endangered Scrub Jay. We walked a muddy mile along a path designated for a sure-fire sighting, seeing nothing, and finally found one about ten steps from the parking lot. I guaranteed the sighting: I left the camera in the car.