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Sunday, December 23, 2012

Razorbill Invasion of Florida Photos 12/23/12

Razorbill at Sanibel Island lighthouse beach today.

One came close to shore
Here you can see the back legs.
When they feed, they open their wings

and lunge forward and down.
Their wings propel them
underwater and they go really fast, like flying underwater, chasing mall fish, their main food.

In addition to the Razorbills, we saw this Horned Grebe.

Here are some photos I took today at Sanibel Island, FL, from the beach by the lighthouse. We saw 10 Razorbills from there and I was lucky that a few came near shore to feed, one as close as 20 feet from me. They were doing a lot of feeding and it was interesting to watch them dive for fish. They spread their wings, then dive down, zipping very fast underwater. Their main food is small fish. The Razorbill invasion of Florida is historic, with numbers never before seen here. There could potentially be thousands in Florida waters, all along the coasts. 

5 comments:

Lynn Benoit said...

What cool birds. Great pictures, especially fun are the action shots!

Meg Rousher said...

wonderful captures, thanks for sharing :)

Meg Rousher said...

Beautiful captures, thanks for sharing

Jules and Ken said...

We finally got some good views of the razorbill today. We watched one dive and a brown pelican would dive right near it, dive after dive. Our good looks were off the causeway bridge islands. Have Merry Christmas
Julie and Ken

Ethan Meleg said...

Great photos! There was a Razorbill hanging out directly under the Naples pier last night... being fed bait by fisherman. Incredible!