ML134359741

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

After work this evening, I decided to go to Westside Industrial Park to finally get myself a Duval County Limpkin. I easily found three of those and stumbled upon something a lot more interesting, and certainly something that I had never seen before. In a small puddle that was barely bigger than my truck and situated along the edge of an empty parking lot, I found a smattering of shorebirds. Among them was this beautiful Buff-breasted Sandpiper! To think of all the time I've wasted scoping sod fields looking for this species when I could've just drove up to one in a parking lot. All of the shorebirds on this checklist were in the same small pool of water. I was able to slowly and gently ease the truck up next to the puddle without flushing the birds. It was amazing! The puddle is located at approximately: 30.378019,-81.790458. It is in an empty lot behind a large warehouse next to a cow pasture. If you go looking for these birds please remember this is private property and be polite to the security guard if they ask you what you are doing or if they ask you to leave. Some years I will go through an entire fall season without seeing a single Buffy. This bird was my third one in two days, in two different places. Add to that a locally rare Hairy Woodpecker and a first year type Cerulean Warbler that I saw earlier in the day and you have reason to celebrate with a frosty libation. Since the shorebirds think 95° is fall, I've decided that I should too, so I went ahead and opened a pumpkin beer. But, this is not your average pumpkin beer. This is a Good Gourd from Cigar City Brewery in Tampa. Good Gourd is a perfect blend of delicious pumpkin goodness and tasty fall spices. It's like a slice of grandma's pumpkin pie. Cheers!🍻 Someday, (in all likelihood 2-3 years from now when I finally catch up on photo editing backlog) I will add better photos and video that I captured with my camera. For now, here are iPhone shots of my camera screen.

Technical information

Model

iPhone 6

Lens

iPhone 6 back camera 4.15mm f/2.2

ISO

50

Focal length

4.2 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/2.2

Shutter speed

1/30 sec

Dimensions

2500 pixels x 1875 pixels

Original file size

789.22 KB