Sky Watch Friday

Sharing sky watching with three sea gulls just after dawn as the sun rises over the calm Atlantic ocean at Jacksonville Beach, FL. You can click on the photo for the full size to take in the full effect. Sunglasses and sunscreen are optional. :)

Other reasons to get up early? Sky Watch Friday at Wigger's World, of course!

Now a-pier-ing: 3

One minute later, now 6:33 a.m., and on the north side of the pier this time. A lone seagull kind enough to make an appearance in the perfect location.

Gull on the wing

A black headed gull soaring on updrafts over the breaking surf.

It was a dark and stormy...

It was a dark and stormy most of the day, really, but especially the afternoon when multiple storms rolled through the area with strong winds, heavy rains, and quite a bit of lightning. All good fun for the gulls and ducks and other birds who seemed to be having a grand old time taking advantage of the strong winds to soar around effortlessly.

This photo was also taken as part of World Pentax Day - April 5, 2008 - and uploaded to http://www.pentaxforums.com/gallery/category-19-pentaxium-world-pentax-day-april-2008.html with many other Pentax camera owners from around the world to document a moment from our day today. You can click the above link to go to the gallery to see all of the many great shots other Pentax users uploaded from their day. Ain't the internet grand? :)

Pelicans on Posts

And yes, a few gulls, too.

It was quite windy - the birds are all facing the same direction so the stiff breeze doesn't ruffle their feathers - literally. :)

Beachgoer

40 miles = 500 years

A fun day in St. Augustine today, with enough pictures taken to last almost an entire year if we post one per day. They aren't all blog worthy, but enough are that we have blog fodder for some time to come.

It was especially exciting because today was one of those fun days when they had "living historians" walking around - but not just a handful... no, today was a special day and there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-200 people dressed in period costume from the British period in the 18th Century. Men, women, children. Soldiers, sailors, politicians. Rich, middle-class, poor. Everyone and everything was represented.

At one point they held a private, period-only reception of some sort in a garden area:




The climax of the evening was a nightwatch parade / grand illumination where all of the soldiers lined up on St. George street and lead a parade of all of the period persons to the governors house behind the town square, complet with the Brits playing their fifes and drums and the Scottsmen playing their pipes. Civilians carried lanters or candles. There was to be a ceremony of sorts at the Governor's house but the crowd was heavy and we were at the other end of the street and quite tired after trapsing around uneven roads for 7 hours already...

And just for fun, a compliment to Sharon's seagull from yesterday, here is a gull coasting on the ocean breeze just north of the Castillo over the Mantanzas river inlet: