Finding Gold in Botany Bay

Because of the shutdown, I have no work to do.  So when my friend, Laurel, who is currently renting a house about five and a half hours from me, invited me to visit, I jumped at the chance to go have a LOT of fun, because that is always what Laurel and I do.  We are both avid photographers and birders and Laurel tries her best to keep me active all day.

One of the best places to enjoy birds is Botany Bay Wildlife Management Area, only a few minutes away.  Today the tide was low enough at sunrise for us to walk on the beach - it has been mostly destroyed by Hurricanes and the land is subsiding, so there is only a beach at low tide.

We managed to be the first ones in, sliding into our parking space just ahead of the several cars of a photography group.  We were on the beach for the first chance  of sunrise, which didn't seem like it was going to be much.

I thought this little cloud would be the entire sunrise - took this mostly as a joke

But were we delighted to find ourselves wrong.

Come along.

The light did improve a little and a little color spread out, helped with taking the pictures in supersaturated mode.

Beach view before sunrise

Laurel's favorite tree made for a lovely scene

This is where I was when the sun came up

I fell behind Laurel as we each lost ourselves in our pictures. Just as I caught up with her, a rainbow appeared. It started up with only one side but soon spread to a full one. A second full one tried to appear, but we could only see the two sides near the ground.

You can barely see the second rainbow forming here

Photo by Laurel - She changed to her 10mm lens to get this marvel

I loved watching the big pillows of foam float around and form sculptures with the stumps out in the water 

I love the weathered textures and colors in the fallen trees

While walking back to our car, on the boardwalk over the marsh, Laurel found me a wood stork to photograph, in the now gray light.  We spent the rest of the morning catching some good light and finding great birds, sometimes even at the same time.  We took the driving tour for the fourth time this visit, finding new and different scenes and birds. 

Wood stork

We had been looking for this red headed woodpecker for three visits - that big white T flying across
 the road caught my eye. In my best posed pictures, he doesn't appear to have an eye. 

One of my favorite views from the driving tour - a typical low country view

I watched one of these great egrets fly in and walk towards another bird.  This was the middle picture
of them walking toward each other, then walking away.

There were several yellowlegs in the area, but I was only able to bag this one

This view is on my side of the car.  Every time we go around the loop, I have to look back up this little creek to check for birds.  Today the light was so beautiful on the resurrection fern, she made me take this picture.

We found five turkeys near the end of the loop today.  Laurel was able to grab this shot before the tall grass hid them. 

I only have two more days here but I expect to have lots more pictures.  We have two days of photography lined up. And I think we'll be seeing much more sun than we did for the first few days.  I  will post some of our other finds in my next blog.