Day 32 Captiva

Today is the first day of March....where did February go?  We have been here in Captiva the whole month and it flew by....it is true what they say "Time goes fast when you're havin' fun!".
We began the new month with one of our favorite things to do ---- birding at Ding Darling!
It was an absolutely wonderful day out on the drive ....so many birds of all kinds and everywhere you looked. So much of what we saw and experienced was not captured in our pictures and is hard to express in writing.  One of the best experiences today occurred as we stood on the edge of a pool of water by the drive......at one point a group of several flocks of shore birds flew directly over our heads so close that we could hear the swooshing sounds of their flapping wings as they flew in unison....was exhilarating. These flocks move together gracefully in the air as if they are flying to music. This is something that can not be captured in a photo and it happened so fast that we could not capture in a video. But it will remain captured in our birding memories forever.

Click to enlarge to see some of the shore birds in flight.

We saw several birds in flight as they moved from one side of the drive to the other. They had been feeding on one side and we guess that they then moved to another location as the feeding areas changed or another area was better for sunning.   The most beautiful birds in flight are the Roseate Spoonbills flashing shades of pink and the White Pelicans with their massive wings spread wide.

White Pelican takes flight.



Tri-colored  Heron dances for his food.



Mergansers at play.

White Pelicans rest after eating.

After our great time birding, we had a picnic lunch at nearby  Bowman's Beach which offers some of  Sanibel's best shelling, and some of the island's most remote beach space. There is a quarter mile or so walk from the parking lot and the great picnic area to the beach, in which you'll cross a wooden bridge over freshwater.  Of course there are  many more people here than on our beach which offers much more privacy. We only walked out to view the beach and left because clouds were moving in.

Spent rest of afternoon watching movies and working on blog and editing pictures. Rained rest of day.
Easy dinner tonight...made frozen Bertolli dinner of pasta with shrimp,red peppers, and asparagus and served with salad.