Royalty Gets a Tern

We get more Terns in Arizona than one might expect, or at least when I was first starting to pay attention to birds, I was surprised by the number of different species. In the spring and early summer months, Caspian and Forster's Terns are a fairly common site at some of the larger Maricopa County water features. Least Terns are annual as well, though uncommon, and have even established a few breeding pairs in Phoenix in the last couple of years.
So, with my wife and I visiting the Tern-rich Florida Gulf Coast in May, I wasn't dumbstruck at the prospect of seeing many of these elegant birds, but I was still looking forward to terning over a new leaf. Brown Pelicans turn up in Phoenix as well and don't have quite the same aerial ethos as the Terns, but there's no more quintessential sight at the beach than the Pelican patrol.

As expected, I saw Caspian, Common, and Least Terns flying off-shore along the gulf beaches. I was bummed to miss Sandwich Terns while in the area, but very pleased to find some nice Royal Tern repositories, even if the specimens were all suffering from May-pattern baldness.

Fairly large, fairly rude, and rarely found away from the oceanic coasts--no records in Arizona in the last ten years--these Terns live up to their names, even when they're not in breeding plumage.

Their aerial acrobatics were predictably (though not boringly) impressive, but the best place to study and photograph these birds was near the 5th street peer in Naples. With the constant presence of fisherman on the peer, these birds had lost their fear of man, or at least would swallow their anxiety if it also included the possibility of swallowing discarded fish pieces.

It was pretty cloudy in the evening when I visited the peer, so I didn't come away with nifty Tern flight shots. This photo of a bug-eyed beauty is plenty nice though, even regal.
One can sense the haughtiness in this bird's demeanor. "Bow to me, and bring gifts of fish!"
Royalty...

Foul Tidings with Good Feelins in the Evenins

Salutations Bird Friends. 

I first have to preface this post with some unfortunate news. Last weekend, whilst pursuing my latent dreams of becoming a professional soccer player vis-a-vis Friday night rec. league soccer, I injured my knee pretty seriously. The kneecap on the left looks more or less normal--not the world's most attractive knee, to be sure, but not the least. The knee on the right is swollen, misshapen, gross, and...lost.

 Here is some photo-documentation of the cumulative effects of the injury: strained veins and massive bruising. At this point, the swelling is pretty bad and the leg is more or less useless.

The intent here is not to facilitate a pity party, though PARTY ON as needed, but to explain the paucity of birding posts that will be coming in the next few weeks or more. I have photos from a recent trip to Florida, the intention of which was to attend a friend's wedding, but any contemporary hiking and birding is at a standstill. Hopefully I can avoid surgery and a longer lay-up.

So, moving on to nicer, more pretty things, I'll start with some of the first scenes from my wife's and my Florida trip in early May. We landed in Ft. Meyers and drove to Naples first thing, hoping to catch the sunset and some beach time during our first evening. Of course, there were birds on the beach too...

I didn't know it at the time, but this Black-bellied Plover was the only one of the species I'd see for the whole trip, so my minor guilt at interrupting a romantic beach walk to take its picture certainly has not lasted. The soft evening lighting, cool breezes, and powdery sand of the Florida beaches are the most welcome of refuges for desiccated Arizonans.

Of course, the main objective of the Florida trip was to attend a wedding, but with that objective well-established and not under threat, there would be plenty of birding to fit in as well!

P.S. Apologies for the rather revealing shots. It's all for...SCIENCE.