No flowers, no candy, no love poems but this Valentine's Day just made my heart sing. It was one of the most beautiful days weather-wise that we've had in several weeks. There was not a cloud in the sky, it was pushing 70ยบ and as the poet Robert Browning once said... "All's right with the world."It got even better when I got to the beach and saw my favorite little birds, the black skimmers. (See my posts Birding Beach Style from Jan. 2011 or Celebrity Skimmers from June 2009.) These guys are very rare and I usually only see one or two at a time and then once or twice a year.
Today, however, in one large group of gulls and terns I counted 30 skimmers. I was astounded! I don't have a picture of that large group due to camera operator error. Oops. But I did manage to catch another group of seventeen of these amazing little guys, see above. Of course, they turned their backs to me so you couldn't see the lovely red banding around their bills. And I didn't manage to get a good video of their low-to-the water flight pattern which allows them to skim the waves for their meals.
(The above is not my photo but a good shot of the skimmer's
striking color and intriguing eating habit.)
What I got today was a thrill better than any long-stemmed red roses could ever deliver. Happy Valentine's Day to me.
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