A Royal Pain...

Those of you who follow my photos know that my favorite shots of all are behavior shots - those times when I manage to catch wild creatures doing something interesting. Those are the little moments I like the most, photographically speaking. So, today you see an adult Royal Tern (left) trying desperately to ignore his/her fully grown offspring (right) who simply won't stop it's incessant begging. If I were the parent, I'd fly off just to get away form the non-stop "peep, peep, peep, peep, peep." I swear, I spent an hour at the beach photographing birds and this little guy never ONCE stopped with the begging! I think the parent must be practicing selective hearing ... which may indicate that it's a male. Just sayin'...

I went over to Lake Seminole this morning to drop off my recycling at the center they have there (so convenient - I love it!) While I was there, I visited a few favorite spots at the lake and saw herons, egrets, ibis, ducks, coots, cormorants and anhingas. And butterflies.

This afternoon, I headed over to Redington Beach where I saw hundreds of terns and over a hundred of what I believe were red knots (a smallish shore bird that winters here). Plus a pair of osprey fishing, unsuccessfully, and several pelicans fishing, very successfully. I posted 9 shots on Flickr starting HERE with a downward-facing osprey.

I am still gimping around on my foot - it's been 3 weeks and it STILL hurts! I changed out the insoles in my shoes today and my foot feels better. I usually wear orthotics with a high instep to support my arches, but I think that is aggravating the damaged tendons in my left foot. So, we'll see how this works. I have places to go, things to see - can't be hobbling around like this!

Thanks for stopping by ... and Happy Monday.

Debbi