After being “officially” closed during the government shutdown, Florida’s Gulf Islands National Seashore didn’t look too worse for wear when my husband and I visited over the weekend. Some sand had drifted over the road, and visitors were climbing the dunes (DON’T DO THAT), but otherwise both the beach and the shoreline along the sound looked relatively calm. Phew.

My husband and I searched for waterfowl. As a duck hunter, he had seen Redheads and scaups and mergansers throughout the winter, but as I did not relish getting up at 3:30 a.m. to sit on a freezing-cold boat, I still had not added any of my flippered friends to the 2019 year list.

Read the rest at 10000 Birds!