2012-12-29 Turtles and birds

What a morning! As I was online  before my walk it kept getting darker outside not lighter – at 6:30-7:00am!! With the sky DARK gray I got ready to walk anyway.  Just as I was about to leave the sky opened with torrents of rain pouring down. I decided a later walk might work better. So, just about as I got all set up to begin my next project the sun came out – and off I went admiring the partial rainbow for its colorful streak across the still gray sky.

Most of the sky was still very dark but the sun is on the side the weather comes from and sure enough, after a bit the whole sky grew lighter and sunnier. Plovers were mere moving dots at the far end of their field so I went right to the beach.

Turtles began popping their head up almost immediately. Several times in a very smallish area so I set the camera on only a small amount of zoom and tried to hold it steady covering a fairly wide area of the sea in front of me.  A tripod might have been in order. I DO have a tripod and a monopod but I don’t find either helps much when I leave them at home!

So there I was - hoping - hoping - hoping.  

When a head would pop up I’d click – no time to check to see if the camera was still pointed right or not. It’s almost like trying to catch a ‘Jack-in-the box’ as it pops up. On the tiny camera screen some shots seemed to have dark specks on them. Imagine my hopes when I got home and could see those shots on the computer screen.  Several of beautiful water only, but three – yes 3!!! – with a turtle head!

 

 

One with some of the shell even! And then to discover that picture has a second spot that is likely another turtle head barely breaking the water. WhooooHoooo!!!  Oh happy day! I may just start toting the tripod!

 

At the end of the beach there were tent tops and tables – the tables being decorated with local vegetation – so I gather there was a party there last night.

 

Onward to the fiesta grounds but nothing remarkable there. On the way back some Donne Salis (Micronesian Starlings) were doing a lot of flying and squawking and they even attacked and chased off some kingfishers I’d just photographed calmly sitting in a tree. I suspect the Salis have a nest they thought the Kingfishers were too close to. They can both be quite aggressive species.

 

 

In this case it was ‘no contest’ – the Kingfishers made a hasty retreat – chased for quite a ways by the Salis. The tree the Salis then settled in is across the (narrow) beach road from where the Kingfishers had been ie: quite close.

 

Continuing on toward home I paused for a hello to the Chinese guy who also walks along there most days. We both noticed the sky rapidly graying up again so we just exchanged a greeting and that brief weather comment as I kept on going.  

A couple of Plovers were up in ‘my’ end of the field so I had to pause for a few snaps there. The one closest to me looks in one picture like it has just one foot. But shots of the same bird, before and after that one, clearly show two.