Whitney Beach, which stretches along the northwestern edge of Longboat Key, is certainly one of the best birding locations in Manatee County. Today, it hosted a seabird convention.
Arriving at noon, I encountered hundreds of red knots, black skimmers and royal terns, with lesser but significant numbers of Sandwich terns, Forster's terns, laughing gulls, ring-billed gulls, willets, black-bellied plovers and sanderlings. These birds had gathered along a 50-yard stretch of the beach, relatively unfazed by the humans that wandered past. They readily posed for photos and paid no attention to the brown pelicans, cormorants and ospreys that flew overhead.
Their relative passivity may have been partly in response to the sea fog that was drifting in from the Gulf of Mexico; visibility for fishing and scavenging was rapidly declining. Whatever the reason, their massive congregation was a sight to behold.
