Paddle on Mill Tail Creek

November 25, 2015

Tuesday, I went in early to work on a project and was hanging out at the desk when the phone rang. I answered it and the man identified himself as John Thomas, a volunteer I'd just met. In fact he was supposed to train me on the procedures of the Visitor Center, but we had mostly talked paddling and he showed me his kayak, paddles and lots of maps showing places to paddle.

So I said "Hi John, this is Marilyn, and he said he was calling to find me to see if I wanted to paddle with him that afternoon.  I replied, "Yes, I want to paddle, but I have to work today but can paddle tomorrow." He responded, "I have to work tomorrow morning until 12:30. Do you want to start when I get off." Of course, I never say no to a paddle, so agreed to meet him at the Visitor Center in Manteo, at noon.

So Wednesday, just after 12:30,  I was following him out of the Visitor Center, across the Croatan Sound, to Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. We went past the Maintenance Building and down to Milltail Road to where it crosses Mill Tail Creek.  We were unloading our kayaks and getting ready to leave by about 1:30 P.M. This is a quiet, mostly wide creek through a swamp.  I saw no places to take out, in about 2.5 miles.  We had to turn around in order to get home before dark.  We managed to get back right at sunset and I made it all the way home before the last bit of pink faded from the darkening sky.

We saw no wildlife, except for a few birds.  I heard or saw chickadees, turkey vultures, red bellied woodpeckers, a pileated woodpecker and lots of wood ducks - all either in eclipse, females or young. The quiet was wonderful, except for the noise of a few planes, and one sound of an ATV when we were almost back to the put-in.

John getting ready

And getting ready to paddle off the dock

The waterway - a creek through a swamp

Dark, tannic reflections

Me by John

John

The light just before sunset

Almost back

Last Friday, John called me again to go on another paddle.  This time we went north to Carova Beach Park and Boat Ramp, in the town of Carova, on the Outer Banks, almost to Virginia.  We paddled down a canal and the through a natural waterway, still lined on one side with expensive houses. In the front lawn of one house, we saw three wild horses. We paddled across a bit of open water and then found some channels into a march where there were lots of duck blinds. We also paddled past some of the Currituck National Wildlife Refuge.  Unfortunately, I had to change my canoe and other stuff into John's truck as we had to have 4-wheel drive to drive across the beach and I forgot both  my life jacket and my camera in my car and didn't notice for about 20 miles. .  He had an extra life jacket, but no camera.  The only birds we saw was a great blue heron, a great egret, and a flock of swans which flew over us.

My apologies to the people who saw this unfinished. I'm not sure how I managed to publish it before I was finished editing it. 

Getting Acquainted with Coastal North Carolina

One of the first things I planned to at my winter home was to go birding.  My boss took me on a tour of two of the refuges in our complex last Tuesday, then I went on a birding "walk" last Friday. We met at the Pea Island Visitor Center which will be my favorite place to work. It looks out over a large pond much loved by wintering tundra swans, white pelicans, and hopefully soon, ducks. But last Friday, the winds were blowing at 30 mph and the sand - this is on the outer islands and only yards from the sandiness of the beach - was sandblasting my skin off. So all of us just stayed inside and used our binoculars and the three scopes located in the left - in the picture - end of the building and watched the few brave birds that tried to fly as well as lots of them sitting or feeding on the water.

Pea Island NWR Visitor Center

For a complete list of the birds we saw there, click here. 

All of them were too far for pictures but I managed to collect a few more pictures last week.

A few of what will soon be thousands of tundra swans - this taken at Alligator River Refuge

A closer view of a tundra swan 

Tundra swans on a field the refuge is flooding 

Swans on one of the Pea Island ponds

 While on the bird walk. we saw a lot of great black-backed gulls and at least one lesser black-backed gulls and even one ring-billed gull, a much smaller bird. But they were all too far away to photograph. These gulls were playing in a puddle at a marina between the refuge and my house.  I also found the plover and killdeer there.

At least the middle gull is a greater black-backed gull, I think

 This may be a third winter lesser black-backed gull - help please

I think this is an American golden plover due to both it's eye-stripe and body shape

The upiquitous killdeer

I trained with another volunteer couple at Pea Island Visitor Center last Saturday but arrived early enough to do a little birding.  This time the wind was only about 19 mph and I spend a lot of time enjoying a group of about 30 pelicans tightly feeding. I even took several movies of the water ballet they were performing.

Pelican pack

I think all of these are sub-adults, born this year

There is a patch of scrub oak at the beginning of the trail.  When I stood on the boardwalk, and pished, about 20 yellow-romped warblers, AKA butterbutts, popped up

We have an osprey platform in front of the visitor center. The nest was blown away in a
 storm and has not been rebuilt, but this eagle spends a lot of time there as well as a kingfisher. 

I also stopped at the Brodie Light house and got a little bit of sunset color in the clouds behind it but no birds.

Bodie Lighthouse - Click here for the history

I really wanted to find more incoming birds and, to that end, drove over 300 miles last Monday, and almost got stuck in the mud on a dirt road, and backed almost half a mile to avoid impassable mud. I finally starting seeing birds flying overhead at Pocosin Lakes NWR, but the road became impassible before I reached the lake. I passed another refuge in the dark on the way home. But we just had a big cold front come through, so I bet I'll soon be seeing lots more ducks. And we'll have 50,000 or more tundra swans scattered over four refuges. 

And soon after this comes out, I'll be on a paddle with my new paddling guru, another volunteer here. He was supposed to train me, but he mostly told me about all the paddling places around here and showed me his kayak and paddles.  I only have an open canoe, so may not be able to do a lot of his paddles but definitely can do some of them. Stay tuned. I'll also try to capture some of our black bears for you soon.  He called me to paddle today but I had to work.  He works tomorrow but will be off at 12:30. Can't wait. 

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you take the challenge to get outdoors Thanksgiving day - but in the wild, not the shopping mall. 

And for a REALLY interesting blog about helping to band terns and pelicans, check out my fellow volunteer's blog. 

And check on the picture to link to other Wild Bird Blogs from around the world. 

First Paddle in North Carolina; First New Friend

November 15, 2015

I was so excited about this experience,  I couldn't cull my pictures enough.  Get your coffee first. 

Besides getting to reconnect with many of my old friends, I got to turn a virtual friend into a real friend. I have been running into him in cyberspace for several years, since we both write blogs and both post our pictures on Flickr. He blogs about gardening and paddling and some of the stories of his paddles make me drool. I think he commented that we would have to meet while I was living close to him and I commented that I would love to do the paddle he blogged about.  He claims his job is Tree Hugging, Dirt Worshipping, and Second Guessing, so I knew he would be a kindred spirit. And he really works at the Norfolk Botanical Garden.

We agreed to meet at Merchants Millpond State Park, just south of the Virginia state line in northeast North Carolina.  I reserved a campsite for two days and drove up there from my stop to visit Laurel in South Carolina, getting there in time to enjoy the beautiful visitor center, and have some hammock time.

My camp

The next morning I got up and went to get a cup of coffee, then came back to start photographing.  I found I couldn't get into the parking lot, from where I had planned to do a little hiking, but there was lots of beauty to be found along the road. A few minutes later, a truck slowed down and the driver asked, Marilyn? I responded, Les?  Within a few minutes, he had parked his truck, grabbed his camera, and we were catching up, like old friends, while enjoying the marvelous light.

I came back from getting coffee down this road and saw this wonderful light..  The lake is visible across the road.

Sun's up

This road view made me anxious to get on the water

I couldn't stop photographing this scene

The dam

Just another dam picture

My favorite dam picture- it's almost an abstract

Putting In

Les looking almost as good as his reflection

This was the only heron we saw

Red maples added fall color

We saw very few birds. But there were some wood ducks screeching and lots of Canada geese calling.  They were all at the very back, where we couldn't paddle for the mix of duckweed, leaves, and parrot feather.

A mockingbird guarding his berries

I loved the Christmas look of the silvery Spanish moss and the red maple leaves

One of the canoe camps

Another doubly beautiful view

I loved the light coming through the Spanish moss

This tree looked like it had  had a hard life

Shelf fungi

I could look at the reflections on this dark tannic water forever

This scene was even more beautiful until a rogue breeze messed up the reflection

This man came in and out with us

We visited with him as we came off the pond and admired his spotted perch.
He cleans them and gives them to his old neighbors. 

Just another day in (a new) paradise.  Thanks Les for the wonderful trip.  And the first day at work, the volunteer who was SUPPOSED to train me was an avid paddler,  and taught me a lot more about where to go paddling then about how to run the Visitor Center.  Fortunately, the National Wildlife Refuges Visitor Center is only three years old and had the latest software to run the cash register.  So it's pretty blonde friendly.

I told him about this paddle and he said I might have been able to cross the street and put on on Bennett's Creek but recently there hasn't been enough water. Click here to find a description of the first leg of that stream.  And the park has built a big, interpretative visitor's center about a quarter of a mile north.  That is now the place you rent canoes. But you would still put in across from the little dam.  This area is probably the northernmost place to find the American alligator.  We did not see the resident gator on our paddle.

My Winter Home: First Impressions

I arrived at my winter home last Monday. I'll be working at two refuges managed together, Pea Island NWR and Alligator River NWR.  Actually, I'll be mostly working at the Visitor Center in Mantaeo, NC and the one on the Pea Island NWR. I spent the weekend camping north of the refuges and paddling with a blogger friend. I had a problem finding the Visitor Center which serves serves several refuges along the North Carolina coast. That is because the street is actually their driveway and thus not recognized by my GPS. And asking for directions didn't work well either because I was asking for the refuge, not that visitor center.  And the two are several miles apart. So I spent some time casting about before I stumbled on signs to it.

There I met my new boss Tracy and several of the volunteers and staff. Tracy had me fill out some of my paperwork and gave me my work shirts - the light blue ones I've been coveting for years. The visitor center is only three years old and has beautiful displays of life along the Atlantic ocean and in the marches behind the dunes. I didn't take any pictures, so you'll have to wait to see pictures.  But soon I was following her to my bunkhouse. We drove back north  to South Nags Head and stopped at one of the beach houses - albeit one that had four or five houses between it and the ocean.  Then I found out THIS was the bunkhouse and I would usually be the only person here except for an intern that comes in on the weekends and for the RV volunteers that come to wash their clothes and use the Internet.  This is the nicest house  I've even lived in and I'm sure I'll enjoy living here.

There are views to the east, south, and west and also decks on all those sides.  I also have a screened-in room on the south side.  I can see the sun coming up over the Atlantic, with house shapes siluetted against it, and also see the sun set over Pimlico Sound.  The only drawback is that the basement, which houses two sets of washer/driers and is now storing my bike, is on the ground level.  Fourteen steps up is the door that goes into the hall leading to the 4 bedrooms, and two baths. Then it is another fifteen steps up to the open room that has the living, dining and kitchen areas.

I'm also in the smallest room I've ever tried to squeeze into and the kitchen also has a lot of wasted space. Between trying to find  places for what I bring in, before bringing in more, and needing to take lots of breaks from climbing stairs under burdens, I'm moving in very slowly.  But I do have all my big boxes out of the car and only need to pack up canned goods and bits and pieces. And I've ordered in some organizational tools - stacking bins, drawer dividers, and will soon get my current mess hidden.

I"m HOME

I picked this bedroom because it has the most floor and wall space

The living area taken from the east side

And then turning to shoot down into the kitchen which has two big refrigerators

The view off my back deck

My ocean view - this probably was at 400 mm

My first sunset over Pimlico Sound and taken off my back deck

Tuesday I got up early and got the essential groceries, then quickly made breakfast.  My boss arrived at 9:00 A.M. to take me on a tour of both refuges. I got to see the Pea Island Visitor Center, and chat with a couple that also has spent a lot of time at Anahuac NWR which is where I began my volunteering career.  Pea Island also had National Parks land adjacent to our land and we actually have visitors use their restrooms.  The refuge overlooks a pond and there are three telescopes set up in the visitor center to look at the distant birds.  That morning the bird du jour was the American white pelican.  There were hundreds of them there along with a few other species, including double crested cormorants and a few ducks, too far away for me to identify.

Then we had to drive several more miles to get to Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.  There we saw the fields were just starting to be flooded by the  pumps.  Tracy said that, the fall had been so wet, the farmers who grow corn in the summer and leave some behind for the swans, geese and ducks could not get the harvest in until just recently. I saw a pond full of tundra swans with a few mallards milling around among them. Otherwise, there were not many birds present.  But that should all change, culminating in the most birds here next January.

My first sunrise, taken from my side deck looking toward the Alantic Ocean

About a fourth of the tundra swans on the pond

I zoomed on the closest swans

Mallard ducks and swans

Today I'll work at the visitor center in Manteo all day, getting trained.  Then I'll be off on Thursday and Friday, before going down to train at the Pea Island Visitor Center. Friday I plan to go on a bird walk at Pea Island and then go to another site, supposed to be good for birds. I'll also have to go shopping for storage stuff to help me shoehorn into my room and the kitchen cabinets.  I'm going to be busy for several weeks just enjoying places on the Outer Banks. I looks like I'll be having a great winter.