Last Day in Sea Rim: Birds and Bikes

It's been very cold here at Sea Rim State Park the last few days, since a storm on Thursday ushered in icy Canadian air.  We are getting over colds, so we deferred any ambitious outdoor activity (other than daily coffee walks and other short strolls) until we were healthier.  Today was the day.

We started with an early morning walk around the marsh boardwalk, and - just as we had guessed - we found a lot more bird life than we had a week ago during the afternoon.  No sooner had we set foot on the frosty boardwalk, then we came across a Great Blue Heron who, we imagined, was hanging out on the boardwalk to avoid getting wet in the frigid cold morning air.

As the sun rose, though, it was warming, and Kathy took an opportunity to soak it up between bird sightings:

This particular marshland is home to large flocks of coots, ducks and pelicans, as well as the wading birds, and one very large coot flock was busy working its way across the far side of the pond as we passed:

A group of maybe 10 cormorants were gathered on one section of the boardwalk --

-- and we wondered what they were about - perhaps also trying to stay warm in the cold morning.  As we approached, they flew away, and, as we reached their gathering spot, we saw what had brought them together:  two blue crabs they had dismembered.  The body of each crab had a little hole through which the birds had eaten the heavy flesh, and each leg had been severed from the body, then shoved into a crack of the boardwalk to hold it as a bird pulled the leg meat out of the upper end of the leg shell.  These birds were expert crab eaters!

Walking back around toward the beginning of the boardwalk, we encountered the family of Ibis that we had seen prior days - two white parents and one dark fledgling.  Here, one parent and the young bird are deciding whether to beat a strategic retreat from us as we approached:

Just as we thought we had run out of birds to spot, Kathy noticed a small movement in the tall grasses to our right, and she spotted this beautiful little green heron, who was trying to stand as still as possible so that we wouldn't notice him as we passed.  Didn't work, but no harm done.

Just afternoon, we set out to do a short hike on a marsh trail inland from the campground.  We rode our bikes over to the trailhead --

-- but, when we got to the trailhead, it was evident why it was called a "marsh" trail:  the whole first section of the trail was under water.  We decided that wasn't our cup of tea on a chilly day, so instead we decided to peddle down the park road to where it was closed due to a washout that occurred a few years ago.

As we hoped, there was a beach access road at the end of the park road, so we rode out to the sand and found a likely spot to sit and eat our picnic lunch:

While we were munching, a cavalry of five Jeeps rolled out on the sand and down the beach away from us.  It looked like a group had decided to go four wheeling on this sunny Sunday afternoon.

We found the beach sand firm enough that we could peddle the bikes along the water with no trouble.  So we decided to bike back to our campground along the beach.  These seagulls obviously had not seen beach bicycles before, because they fled in panic as we approached:

David attempted a beach-bike-riding selfy and sort of captured the wacky spirit of the ride:

Nearing our campground, we encountered a small Boy Scout troop camped on the beach (Sea Rim State Park permits dispersed camping on the beach, as well as site-reserved camping in its campground).  They looked very well organized as beach campers go, so we felt we needed a photo to remember the sight:

It wasn't long before we reached out campground, and, conveniently peddled right up the sand to our campsite.  Done and done!