After tearing the house apart to find my running shoes my devious wife hid on the advice of my trail running group, I am finally back on the road. Long time readers already know that is not where I “want” to be (I belong on the trails) and certainly not walking…but that is where I am. I’ve been brief on details before and the fact I am still having constant flashbacks tells me I best keep those to myself for your mental comfort. In general, have lost the use of my dominant arm and based on the visual and immense disappointment (I was waaaayyyy tooo optimistic) when they took the post surgery splint off yesterday, it is going to be a long “trail” to a full recovery. I am not good at “slow” or “measured” and will have to keep an open ear to my external voices of reason – noting Brad’s is a much more calming and suggestive tone versus the more “Nurse Rached’s” of my wife’s hehehe. Until I can stop pecking at letters to the right of ‘G’, Brad will be guiding the Intrigued industrial complex (for which I am extremely grateful). With that, we bring you another of his Huntington Beach adventures.
Take it away Brad…
The veteran birders and bird photographers among you will not be surprised at what I say next. Can you guess? You are probably right. I am still going through photos from our Huntington Beach State Park birding adventure. I may not have mentioned it before, but Jan and I took well north of 11,000 photos in the three days of birding. I know that sounds like just getting warmed up for the more serious birders, or photographers, or bird photographers. Remember, this was a vacation. I would not have guessed that we would see 26 species at this one location (out of the 56 we spotted on the whole vacation). Granted, a few of the 56 spotted were some of the same birds we have at home in Illinois. Overall, we added a couple of dozen to our life list of birds.
As we arrived in the park at about 8 am at the beginning of another sunny February day in South Carolina, we headed to the first elevated boardwalk we could find. We were about a mile from the highway and couldn’t hear any traffic noise. And since we were still a few hundred yards from the ocean, we heard no surf sounds either. Actually, the area would be very quiet if it weren’t for all of our feathered friends welcoming us. One of the first things we saw flying was quite a distance from us. I had my zoom all the way at 500mm to catch this tiny shot. At least it’s more than six pixels on the sensor.
Hit the jump to reveal the details on this South Carolina find.
Continue reading Now That’s Yellow…by Brad Marks
Wildlife Intrigued 