Scenery at Huntington Beach

Sunrise

	The Sun Rises Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. It was a quiet and beautiful morning, a lone pelican flying overhead and a handful of bottlenose dolphins swimming past just offshore. My internal clock is more attuned to late nights than early mornings, so I see the sun set a lot more than I see it rise.
	The Sun Also Rises A few minutes after the picture above was taken, the sun rises a few degrees of the horizon and becomes much brighter, forcing different choices in exposure and lending a very different feel to the scene recorded by the camera, much more so than appeared to the eye at the time. I like both pictures, but they certainly each convey their own mood.

Flowers

I’m terrible at identifying flowers, but I was struck by both the pink against the green and their lovely trumpet shapes.

Wildlife

A snowy egret, a wood stork, and an alligator at Huntington Beach State Park

Three's a Crowd

A snowy egret, a wood stork, and a young alligator all hunt in the same space in the freshwater marsh. There was also a great egret, another wood stork, and several young alligators just off camera. It's no wonder the crabs were so nervous. It's also fun to see how three creatures who evolved in different ways can each be a successful predator in this environment. You can also get a feel for how small the snowy egret is relative to the larger birds like the wood stork, great blue heron, or great egret.

One of my favorite pictures from this park.

Male fiddler crab at Huntingon Beach State Park

Don't Wave That Thing At Me

The male fiddler crab has one large claw that looks quite intimidating. Its bark is apparently worse than its bite — the claw's main purpose is so that the male can wave it around and impress the females. It actually hinders the males from catching food, so the females tend to be better than the males at hunting. In this case it is the right claw that is largest, but the large claw can grow on either the right or left side.

Regardless of the claw's main purpose, I decided not to test its effectiveness with my own fingers.

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