Tag: Savannah National Wildlife Refuge

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

A Cast of Thousands…by Brad Marks

Hoping those here in the States had a happy and safe 4th of July celebration! Our Intrigued HQ is just down the road from an individual that puts on a rather impressive annual show for us ruralites. Had some of our staff over (including Brad and Jan), filled the coolers with drinks, threw some meat on the grill and capped the night with things that light up the sky and make you go Oooohhhh and Ahhhhh – life is good. I did manage to come out with a losing record in our highly competitive JARTS tournament (the real ones, not those pansy ones they try to pawn off on kids these days). That will have to be remedied during our next Intrigued outing!!! As promised in my previous post, Brad has posting duties while I taper/rest/heal/plan/worry/obsess/fret and generally drive Linda crazy this week leading up to the first ultra of the year. One of those planning tasks is to set the crew schedule. In this case, only a cast of one (well, and 3 furry assistants), but I can tell you without hesitation, Linda is the secret sauce to success. While I go through the details with her, we’ll have Brad bring us an adventure with a much larger crew!

Take it away Brad…

After a very long and productive day of birding at Harris Neck NWR in Georgia, Jan and I decided we needed just a little bit more birding in our full day.  Our memory cards weren’t quite full, and what’s the use of having large memory cards if you don’t fill them?  Plus, we had plenty of battery life left on our cameras.

We decided to visit the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge, which sits on the South Carolina state line shared with Georgia.  While on a bird walk on Hilton Head at the Audubon Newhall Preserve, we heard people talking about the “millions” of ducks at Savannah.  Others on the walk said there can’t be more than 10-20 birds there, there has never been a “million” in one location.  A million ducks would be interesting.  That sounded like a challenge for us.

Savannah NWR, at least the part we visited, is a drive-through nature preserve.  The gravel drive is mostly a causeway type of thoroughfare, raised a few feet above the tidal water on either side.  We had just entered the preserve and rounded the first corner when we saw a large grey pickup parked along the side of the road.  That usually means there’s something worth photographing nearby.  I pulled within a respectable distance of the truck and parked the car.  Jan and I already had our cameras assembled and ready to go from earlier in the day.  We saw the owner of the truck on the other side of the road on a smaller walking path.  He was looking into the distance. 

As we approached the driver was shaking his head and muttering something about, “every time I move, they move.”  He had just driven non-stop from Virginia and was a bit worn out chasing ducks back and forth across this little pond.

Black-Bellied Whistling-Duck by Brad Marks

What’s that sound, everybody look what’s going down on the other side of the jump!

Continue reading A Cast of Thousands…by Brad Marks

Can be Bite-y…by Brad Marks

Howdy all! It has been a hectic time as of late, but starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel – granted, Linda frequently tells me to stay away from the bright light in the sky. Fortunately, this one comes from the lightening of the schedule. One more major dog show next week (Canine Performance Dog Nationals) in my hometown of Springfield. After that, home for a good spell so I can go into beast mode training for the daunting 50K in early July. In the bustle we did manage to hold an Intrigued bird outing last week that was quite productive…at the cost of HR berating me about an office full of “Warbler Necks”. More to come on that front. For now I am going to focus on getting packed while Brad takes you to the water’s edge. Quick note, one of the locations mentioned happens to be where a similar encounter left me prematurely grey!

Take it away Brad…

We learned a very valuable birding rule of thumb:  Be very aware of your surroundings.  There can be rocks, uneven ground, water, mud, camera equipment, snakes, holes, birds nesting on the ground, etc.  All of the above can be an inconvenience if encountered, or perhaps even painful.  But none of those can really ruin your day like today’s topic.  Since we encountered this subject all over South Carolina, I’m going to take you to many locations for today’s story.

One of our first stops was Jarvis Creek Park.  It is a very nice park with many hiking paths including a 1-mile paved walking path around the central pond.  The park was full of families picnicking and having fun.  Dogs were pulling their people all around the path.

After about halfway around the pond, Jan came across something that had its eye on the tourists and small critters on leashes.  I was up on the footpath talking with someone walking their dog, a boxer named Oscar if I remember correctly.  Jan walked down the bank by the water to get this photo.

Alligators by Brad Marks

Want to see more spiky creatures (you know you do), hit the jump!

Continue reading Can be Bite-y…by Brad Marks