Tag: Laurel Hill Drive

Finally Blue…by Brad Marks

Greetings from the tundra – well, the Illinois tundra that is. We got a good 7 inches of snow yesterday on top of around 4 inches earlier in the week. My driveway looks like a classic West Point defensive position now being outlined by a 3 foot hardened ridge. The worst however is the temps came screaming down, bottoming out around -7F early this morning – windchills in the -24F range. If there was any hesitation to head south, that has been completely discarded. First a few more events to take care of. We had my families Christmas gathering just before this latest storm hit, Intrigued has their party coming up (lord help us ha), we have Linda’s family’s Christmas, then our Christmas and some final appointments to get out of the way first – one being hopefully the final release from my ankle surgeon (Bri needs to run). While I tend to all the logistics involved with those gatherings, I am going to have Brad take the helm and bring you another one of his adventures out east. Take care everyone, stay warm and may your hearts be merry this Christmas season.

Take it away Brad…

Being almost, but not quite, new to birding, I tend to trust the names of the birds to be descriptive.  The more Jan and I go out capturing our feathered friends on “film”, the more I learn the names may or may not describe the bird at all.  Or the characteristic described can only be seen when the bird has met its demise and is splayed out on a display board somewhere.

One of our first encounters with wading birds was in South Carolina a few years ago, we took photos of everything.  It was the first time I came within 19 photos of filling up a very large memory card (at least that’s what the counter on my camera told me) successfully squeezing over 3,700 images onto the card that day.  Downloading the photos later took quite a bit of time, as did recharging the camera batteries.  Jan and I were shooting from about 8 am until 4:30pm.  We weren’t shooting nonstop, but we did take nearly 7,500 photos from a single day’s outing spread across three cards.  This was way before Jan got her 200-500mm lens and was stuck using my 70-200mm with a 1.4x TC attached.  I was still using a monopod, which helped hold up the 200-500mm on my gripped D300; it does get heavy after a while. 

Sorting and categorizing the photos once we were home was a marathon event.  I ended up doing the sorting twice because I was only casually identifying the birds that looked different from the ones in the next set of images.  That’s when I learned that many of the juvenile versions look completely different from the adults.  Their names also do NOT help in the slightest in identifying juveniles.  Rookie mistake on my part.

This year, Jan and I finally saw an adult version of today’s bird that does indeed look like its name.

The day started out rather chilly in spite of being in what I would call the Nearly Deep South in February.  We had begun to traverse Laurel Hill Wildlife Drive at Savannah National Wildlife Refuge on the state line between South Carolina and Georgia.  Technically, we were standing in South Carolina by a couple hundred yards.  A winter wind was blowing that day, so we didn’t start out spending much time outside the car.  Near a small wind break Jan spotted something moving near the reeds at the edge the marsh. 

Little Blue Heron found by Brad and Jan Marks at Savannah National Wildlife Refuge, South Carolina

Hit the jump to see more of this “little boy blue”.

Continue reading Finally Blue…by Brad Marks

Can you see me now?…by Brad Marks

Greetings from the southwest! Linda and I made it to Arizona yesterday and as expected, today was a birding extravaganza going +14 for the year including +3 lifers. (that puts me only 27 birds from being in the top 100 in the US yeah!!). Climbing foothills has pretty much wiped me out (with a tenderized ankle), so Brad is going to close out the month with an adventure in the complete opposite direction.

Take it away Brad…

As many of our readers know by now, Intrigued HQ sent Jan and I to review the European operations in January.  We were able to spend many days with Allyson and check out many of the locations she had been editing from.  Once we were back in the States, Jan was going through her e-mail backlog and found a deal from a hotel in South Carolina we’ve used before.  After a few minutes checking, their claim proved the special deal was legit.  Jan then remembered that she also had airline miles to use, so we booked a quick trip to Hilton Head Island, non-stop from our local airport (expense report pending).  This time we would take the big glass along and not rely on our smartphones for everything.  While that usually means our shoulders get a workout, we get far more usable photos in the end.  For those of our readers that choose to fly with their big glass, please leave comments on how you protect/package it for flights, especially if you have to use regional jets like Jan and I do.

As the departure date approached, the temps in Central Illinois began to flirt with 0 degrees Fahrenheit, or -18C for our international readers.  Central Illinois can get rather cold during February.  I know, I know, you folks in Wisconsin and Minnesota always say we know nothing about cold.  Anything below zero degrees Fahrenheit is cold.  Period.  Jan and I have chosen to escape to warmer parts of the country for a week (maybe longer next year if the Intrigued accountants will approve it) during February, just to thaw things out a little bit.  Plus, our camera batteries last longer when the temps are above freezing, so do our fingers.  Jan and I weren’t very worried about the temps as long as Hilton Head Island held up its end of the bargain and kept true to the differential we have come to expect, meaning 30-40 degrees warmer than Illinois in February.  Well, Hilton Head Island held up its end of the bargain . . . mostly.  Temps when Jan and I landed were near 40F, a tad chillier than we normally experience, but still 40 degrees warmer than Illinois.  Not to worry, by the end of our stay, regular daytime temps at Hilton Head were approaching the mid 60’s. 

For our first birding day on this trip, we decided to go a bit further south in hopes of catching just 5 more degrees, maybe even into the upper 40’s.  Once the rental car was loaded with cameras, Jan and I drove to Savannah National Wildlife Refuge (SNWR) to see what we could see. 

Laurel Hill Wildlife Drive (LHWD), a small part of SNWR, is a 4.5-mile “road” that meanders (their word from the brochure) through a small portion of the refuge’s freshwater impound system.  Essentially, visitors drive in one direction on causeways and two-track roads through the marshlands (my words).  Thankfully, temps did end up being about 5 degrees warmer, but that was all. 

At our first repeat stop on LHWD from the prior year, about 0.5 miles in, there is a small pull-out area.  Naturally, I parked the rental car (still trying to figure out how to expense the car on this trip) and started walking the grassy areas near the water.  Remember when I said the temps were only in the 40’s?  There was also a bit of wind that day making it hard to hold the camera still.  That’s a good and bad thing.  Bad because we were cold.  It was certainly an experience to try to operate the camera controls with my gloves on.  Good because alligators are also cold and very (to the third power, as in “very very very”) slow.  Usually when the temps are this cold, they are busy sunning themselves (though it was cloudy and windy) and they really don’t want to waste precious heat energy chasing down photographers.  After a few (hundred) clicks of the cameras for the few birds we could see, remember it was a bit breezy, Jan and I huddled up making a plan for our next stop.  Really, we just wanted to go sit in the warm car for a few minutes.  When all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, a clump of reeds near us moved. 

American Bittern found by Brad Marks

These clumps are made for movin’
And that’s just what they did
One click of the jump, gonna reveal all to you (note, Brad is NOT responsible for this lame Sinatra reference)

Continue reading Can you see me now?…by Brad Marks