This morning I again went to Little Estero Lagoon.  The total number of birds was very low, but at least there was always something to shoot, and the variety was good: sanderlings, plovers, snowy egrets, tricolored herons, white ibises, pelicans, willets, and a yellow-crowned night heron that flew off before I could shoot it.   One good thing about Little Estero is that it’s easy to get down on your belly at the water’s edge for eye-level shots—no gators to worry about, and no steep bank to contend with, like at Ding Darling or Shark Valley.  I like to use a frying pan here as a “ground pod” —I put the lens foot in the pan, lie on my belly, and slide the lens around by pushing the pan out in front of me as I slowly crawl toward the birds.

    This time I kept Kelsey on a leash tied to my belt, just to make sure no well-intentioned passers-by tried to make off with her (dogs are permitted on the landward side of the beach).  As far as I could tell, the birds didn’t take any notice of her.  She lay next me as I shot waders at eye level, and more than once the birds got so close to us my lens could not focus (which means they were closer than 18 or 20 feet).
    By 10:30 there was very little left to shoot (actually, there were several birds, but no good backgrounds where those birds were located).   On my way out of the park I found a little blue heron trying to eat a blowfish.  The fish had fully inflated itself, and the bird was having great difficulty getting it down its throat:

Little blue heron with a stubborn blowfish at Little Estero.
(1/300sec 600mm f/8 ISO100)

Shorebirds galore on a sandbar just off Lovers’ Key.
(1/1600sec 600mm f/4 ISO200)

    By 4pm all the people and dogs had left and a handful of birds showed up to forage on the well-exposed mud flats: a willet, a black-bellied plover, a tricolored heron, a little blue heron, some sanderlings, small plovers, and sandpipers.  I did see a reddish egret over on the sandbar, but it never came over to the dog park (unlike two days ago when I was here).  A great egret hunted nearby, and a brown pelican dove close by offshore.  Several people reported seeing vast numbers of roseate spoonbills congregate at this site in the past, though I’ve never been so lucky here.  There were some very nice colors in the lagoon behind the dog park late in the day, and I tried to make use of them with a tricolored heron and a couple of ruddy turnstones.  Around 6pm they flew off and I left for the day. 

    If you decide to visit Lovers’ Key and/or Little Estero Lagoon, and both turn out to be duds, I’d recommend keeping the dog park as a last ditch option after 4pm (it’s just minutes away from both locations).  The mud flats at low tide are very nice.  You just have to deal with people and their dogs occasionally scaring the birds away.  After 4pm most people leave for dinner, so it’s a very feasible birding site late in the day.