7-12-19 San Carlos Bunche Beach Preserve, preserve on Casa Ybel Road

Today is my birthday, which means that I get to decide what we do! And obviously, I chose to go birding!
The day before we were driving home from the Corkscrew Swamp, and I spotted a sign for San Carlos Bunche Beach Preserve. Then I looked on eBird and lots of shore birds were seen that day! I knew that that was where I wanted to go for my birthday! Right after lunch, we hopped in the car and drove over the bridge to the mainland to go to the beach! When I arrived, I immediately began looking for birds. There were masses of red seaweed washed up, which brought some tiny organisms for the birds to feed on. This causes there to be many plovers and sandpipers. There was also a Little Blue Heron further down the beach! In total I saw 10 species of bird, many of them lifers! Here is the complete list:
4 Dunlin
30 Semipalmated plovers
30 Laughing Gulls
10 Ruddy Turnstones
20 Willet
5 Snowy Egret
1 Little Blue Heron
5 Wilson's Plovers
4 Short-Billed Dowitchers
2 Western Sandpipers
After the already successful day, we decided to visit an SCCF Preserve on Casa Ybel Road (I forget the name of the preserve...) where I saw a lifer Common Gallinue! Unfortunately I did not have my camera, so we raced back to the hotel and grabbed it, and went straight back to the preserve. Fortunately the Gallinule was still there, and I was able to photograph it! After photographing the first one, I walked around the preserve a bit, and saw several adults and several chicks! This is the full list:
10 White Ibis
9 Common Gallinule
1 Great Blue Heron
2 Osprey
1 American Alligator
I hope to return to this park soon to see what other waterfowl will be found here.
Gracie McMahon