Footprints In The Sand: Dolphins & Stingrays Today! Monday, 8/22/11

Well, once again there was a lot of action today! While walking up the pier again today, I notice several dolphins out in the water. I am too far away to get any good video.

I arrive down at the beach and notice that while the waters are sort of on the calm side, they do have one big wave that comes crashing in.

Not the little lapping waves like the other day. Other than this one wave, the gulf is pretty calm. The water is clear again today. It appears clearer in some places than in others.

Within minutes of arriving down at the beach, I spot my first school of stingray.

They come and go quickly.

Seeing the stingrays so quickly makes me think about yesterday's walk with Michael. After we had walked about 15 minutes yesterday, Michael asked how soon do I see the stingrays? Today there are a ton of stingrays out! Right from the very beginning.

I see several schools of stingrays rather quickly.

Now I see several groups of dolphins. This group is in closer than usual.

This next video is a little longer than most videos that I take. There were a lot of dolphins in this group and they kept coming up out of the water. This group was fun to watch.

This was another big, active group.

I felt like I was at Seaworld watching this next group of dolphins.

This dolphin kept jumping out. I missed him the first time - my camera was put away. He jumped three times. So when he started to jump again I was hoping it would be three times again. I missed the first but caught the last two.

I probably saw 10 or 12 groups of dolphins on my walk today. They were everywhere. There were times that I was looking at the dolphins and the stingrays were swimming by. I didn't know which one to photograph. I ended up staying with the dolphins since I already have plenty of stingray videos. Here is another one from today.

I find these stingrays just fascinating to watch. I could watch them all day.

When there seems to be a break in the action between the dolphins and the stingrays, something on the beach catches my eye. It looks like the first starfish I found the other day.

I can't see him moving so I flip him over to see if he is still alive.

He is. So I flip him back to watch him.

After watching him for a few minutes, I put him back into the surf.

While I was intently filming the stingrays and chasing them along the beach, I didn't notice Stretch fly up. I turned around from the water and he was about 20 feet from me. I was so surprised to see him there!