I went to Sanibel this morning, arriving at the southern end of the island near the lighthouse around 8:15.  Visiting Sanibel is not cheap; a $6 fee to cross the causeway and $2/hour to park in the parking lot.  The first sensation I noticed when getting out of the car was the horrible stench from rotting fish.  I walked out to the fishing pier and noticed that most of the beach south of the pier was mostly free of dead fish; probably because workers were present cleaning up the mess; however, the beach on the north side of the pier was loaded with thousands of dead rotting fish.  The dead fish are a result of red tide in the area.

I found a few birds along the beach, including ruddy turnstones, sanderlings, laughing gulls, black-bellied plovers and a single red knot.  Although I was hoping to see some migrants in the wooded area around the lighthouse, the only ones seen were a few blue-gray gnatcatchers in the trees and some barn swallows flying overhead.  I saw two opreys and a juvenile red-shouldered hawk.  The highlight of the morning was watching the hawk chase a belted kingfisher.  The kingfisher escaped but spent the next 15 minutes flying a circle around the hawk and screaming at him.

After a little less than two hours in the area, I decided to go to the Ding Darling NWR.  Surprise!  When I got there I found they were closed to public access on Fridays.  I then left the island.  I saw a large flock of laughing gulls along the causeway and decided to stop.  Again, the stench was terrible.  There were thousands of dead fish on both sides of the causeway, on the beach and floating in the water.  In the flock of gulls I noticed a few royal terns, sandwich terns, black-bellied and semipalmated plovers, sanderlings, and, again, a single red knot.

After leaving the causeway I stopped at Bunche Beach, again greeted by the same horrible stench from thousands of dead fish strewn along the beach.  It was high tide and very few birds were seen.  There were five or six Lee County Park workers gathering the dead fish.  Time to go home; not a very pleasant outing in paradise.