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Project Noah Nature School
Some specie of sandpiper and some specie of gull.
This beach had warnings about the oil spill. There were also men walking along the beach looking for tar or any suspicious dead animals. The water is green with some sort of algae or seaweed that had been pushed up against the shore and kept there by a sandbar off shore. The water itself seemed clean, and once you got past the algae it was clear enough for goggles to be useful.
To be specific, it's probably a non-breeding adult laughing gull (Larus atricilla). Laughing Gulls seem to be one of the more common gull species along the beaches of North Florida (pan handle) and Alabama.
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Laugh...
I'm planning on saving that for another picture though.
@ dylanmkiley,
Well obviously one of the birds is a Gull, however just plain gull discribes a large group of birds. I don't usually bother with identifying them because the immatures look all kinda a like and many of them are distinguished only by slight differences in coloring. It's a pain in the rear. I'm actually more interested in the Sandpiper.
Well, algae blooms are not uncommon in the gulf. The rivers bring in plenty of silt, chemical fertilizers, animal manure, and what not. I do partially think the great concetration of it has to do with the sand bar that I swam to. When I first saw it, I thought it might have to do with the oil spill (oh no, we won't be able to swim... how miserable!)
Actually, the oil spill could affect algae blooms in that perhaps it killed off some of the algae's main consumers. I'm really not sure though.
And for the record, I didn't really consider petroleum to be a nutrient. :)
Algae blooms are common in freshwater systems where an influx of nutrients, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, occur. Could something similar have happened down there?
Spotted on Aug 1, 2010
Submitted on Feb 23, 2011
