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. 

Seabirds at Sunrise

January 3, 2016

I love being on hand to enjoy sunrises and see what each new day has brought me. But when the days get really short, I all too easily get diverted and miss the leaving time. And, at this time of the year, many mornings are  cloudy or foggy.

The first visible sunrise of the year happened January third.  I missed the first several minutes of it - got diverted - but had a wonderful few hours. My destination was East Beach in Galveston. But there were several pictures needing capture along the route so the sun was just making its appearance as I arrived at East Beach.

Below the Seawall

Dawn reflection, gulls, and waves

There I found most of the resident birds already out fishing,  although I was able to wade out into the surf to the top of my boots to take pictures of some skimmers, terns, and gulls. Then I walked on over to the ship channel and watched clouds of birds fishing.

Waiting for sunrise

Fishing time 

This group was still lazing around - I waded into the surf to get this picture. Skimmers were the bird du jour, but royal terns and a few species of gulls were hanging around as well

Skimmers look really different if you see them from the front versus from the side

 Then I walked on down to the ship channel and watched clouds of birds fishing.

The big ships started leaving and the birds flew to hunt in their wakes

Thousands of birds and scores of big ships shared the ship channel

At one of the fishing stops along the road, I found more masses of skimmers, terns, and gulls.

Skimmers rested shoulder to shoulder several deep and hundreds long

If you look carefully, you can see the lower mandible is over an inch longer than the top one - the birds fly with their beaks open and their lower mandible in the water.

Finally, I stopped on the way back at the beginning of the road to East Beach to get my final pictures, and a few more species.

Resting brown pelicans 

The first black-necked stilts I've seen this visit

They were in with gulls and skimmers

The pelicans were to the right, the stilts to the left, and on the light over the road was an osprey

I'm joining Wild Bird Wednesday.  Click on the image below to find great blogs on wild birds from around the world.  And be sure to share your bird blogs there.  It's easy and fun.

I'm writing this blog on January 10. January three still holds the record for the most awesome day of this year.  It had BOTH the best sunrise and sunset.  Gotta share one more picture.

Sunset from Galveston Island State Park

Walking in the Light at Botany Bay

February 18, 2016

Since Laurel and I are both birdwatchers, photographers, and paddlers, we spend most of our time together doing one and sometimes do all of them together. Botany

We both love a nearby natural area, Botany Bay Plantation Wildlife Management Area. It is an outstanding spot to go to see the sunrise, enjoy the beach, marvel at all the bird life, and sometimes see something pretty unexpected.  This blog is about the first hour we spent there - in search of various views of the dawn through just after sunrise.

The pictures speak for themselves.

We continued our walk on the beach and found lots of feeding birds. We found other interesting treasures and views, as well as more birds on the auto tour. This was the first hour of a six hour adventure.

Then we started down the beach the other way for more adventure.

A long view looking south

Shells can't be removed from the beach so many people play with them there

Making strange art

I've already documented the rest of the morning in my blog: The Birds of Botany Bay. 

When this comes out, I'll be visiting Raleigh.  Hopefully I'll have a few adventures around running errands and getting tires for my car.