Little white flowers

The big patch of Juncus (black needlerush - the long black needle looking things...) is popping with the little white flowers now.

I managed to find one that I could get a closeup on. They seem to prefer the low areas closer to water.

Waves

It was sunny, clear, and very very windy today. Here's what the water looked like at the line of rocks:



If the video doesn't work, here's one of the waves crashing into the rocks:

Also, I saw a monarch butterfly today. It didn't sit still long enough to be photographed.

Update on the little yellow flowers

Most of the daisy-looking yellow flowers have turned into white puffballs now. The fields are covered with white puffballs.

I can't get a good shot, but there are also white daisy-looking flowers closer to the water's edge. A lot more of them are down there now, than when I posted about these flowers last time.

These other yellow flowers are wilting into a more orange color, then turning into long seed pods.

And here's some little purple flowers. There are not as many purple ones as yellow or white.

Butterflies and Berries

Here's the boardwalk's educational sign about the butterflies that migrate through here. Some brown butterflies with white bars have appeared since the last time I looked (bottom right). There are quite a few of the orange ones with black spots, that aren't monarchs (bottom left). There were a lot more of the yellow ones (middle right) a few months ago, but not as many of them now. No monarchs have appeared yet.

The sign is surrounded by bushes with little blue berries. One of the orange butterflies was on the flowers when I got there, but it ran away.

In unpictured news, a whole lot of medium-sized fish were jumping several feet out of the water just past the line of rocks for no apparent reason. No birds or fishermen were above the water, anyway.

A mud-encrusted ring thing

The tide was extra low today. It looks like someone might've lost a life preserver a while ago.

Nothing like adding a giant martini umbrella to be fishing in style.

Update on the peas

The "peas" that grow next to the pier bridge have started drying up and dying back (compared to a month ago).

Meanwhile, there's a whole bunch of these things next to the peas that look like they're going to bloom soon.

It also occurred to me today that I haven't seen any mourning doves in a while. A month ago, there was always a flock of them fleeing from me during every walk. They must've gone somewhere else.

Butterfly

Today I saw a large number of these orange butterflies. Dauphin Island is in the middle of a butterfly migration route, and via cruinne's new picture blog, we should also start seeing monarchs pretty soon. They migrate en masse through here in the spring, making it hard to not hit them with the car.

Meanwhile, I also caught this pair of insects mating in the bushes. They flew off before I could get a better picture.

In other news, a lot of the Spartina have sprouted some frilly tops. I don't remember it being quite that tassled up there before.






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Edit: due to technical difficulties, this post was accidentally deleted and had to be reconstructed. Below was the comment on the original post.

cruinneOct 16, 2014, 2:43:00 PM

Insect voyeur!

Brown Pelicans

My best shot of flying pelicans from Monday's kerfuffle. They were up in the air all aflutter with the gulls, just farther out and not as many. This is as zoomed in as I could figure out how to make it.

Two kinds of little yellow flowers

Yellow seems to be a favorite color of the flowers here. At the moment, there are lots and lots of two kinds.

Boat and Birds

Today the gulls were all in the water in a big white flock.

Then the Discovery went by.

The birds were all aflutter.

... on both sides of the pier.

Also, not pictured: dolphins.

Vantage Points

Here's a view of the pier from the main gazebo. Most of my bird pics and all line-of-rocks pics are from there.

Here's a view of the main gazebo from the end of the pier.

A weird plant

There's a big patch of these weird-looking plants at the west side of the boardwalk area. At first I thought the white was due to bird poo, but no, it grows that way.

Crabs and (not seen) small fish

Today the tide was extra low, or the water was extra clear, or the birds were extra absent, or something. Lots of little fish were swimming around at the edge of the marsh.

Dozens of little fiddler crabs were running around in the mud right next to the bridge.

And there were blue crabs at the line of rocks.





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Edit: due to technical difficulties, this post was accidentally deleted and had to be reconstructed. Below were the comments on the original post.

cruinne Oct 10, 2014, 4:51:00 PM

It looks so much warmer there than here. My parents nearly moved south this summer ... I'm beginning to regret that they didn't!

MWT Oct 11, 2014, 8:38:00 AM

Oh yes, it's a lot warmer on the Gulf coast. :) We might hit freezing temperatures in late December at the earliest. 

Tall plants

This stand of Spartina is at the edge of the parking lot next to the boardwalk. I was impressed by how tall they are. In a typical salt marsh, plants that tall means the ground is complete mush and you'll probably sink in up to your ears. These are growing in an average lawn, however.

Here's the view looking up while standing right next to it. The tallest plant might be 10-12 feet.

A typical quiet midday at the rocks. Lots of gulls standing or sitting around, a couple egrets and some smaller brown birds. Some terns were fishing farther out.

Birds on posts

This tern somehow managed to score a post to stand on. I'm pretty sure it's a royal - it's bigger than the usual terns and has a bright orange bill. The gulls chase each other off the posts all the time, and they chase the least terns around in flight to make them drop just-caught fish, but they left this guy alone.

A bit farther out, a brown pelican.These guys rarely stand on the posts right next to the pier, but they're often on the channel markers. This one is at the entrance to the boat launch.

Unpictured cranes, a consolation flower, and another boat

The most exciting part of today's walk was the two cranes flying around overhead. I don't know what kind, other than not sandhills. It's the middle of fall migration season and there are probably lots of fun migrants at the Audubon Society's bird sanctuary across the street. Sadly, I'm not able to get good photos of any of these with an iPhone 3.

Instead, here's another morning glory, this one in more typical surroundings. There are lots of these scattered around.

Also, here's the Discovery as it heads back to dock. It's DISL's main educational vessel and takes out groups of schoolchildren regularly.

Solar power and some more flowers

I've only just noticed that the audio lecture kiosks on the boardwalk are solar powered. Ingenious and obvious, now that I know!

Flowers on vines aren't the only flowers growing in the Spartina. Here's some daisy looking ones.

Little bitty flowers in the Spartina

Unlike in all the salt marshes I tromped around in as a grad student, the stand of Spartina next to the boardwalk pier is covered with vines that grow little yellow and purple flowers.
 

I guess it's ecological succession in progress. Leave the whole place alone long enough and it'll probably turn into a forest.

Fishing from the Rocks

There wasn't a single bird on the rocks today, so here's a gull on a post from last week.

Instead, a fisherman was standing on the line of rocks. This is at the entrance to the boat launch across from Fort Gaines. Amazing that they don't do that more often.

Ferry

Here's the Mobile Bay ferry as it heads for Fort Morgan on the other side of Mobile Bay. It passes these rocks regularly.