Sunday bird blogging

A boat-tailed grackle on Pinckney Island, and the last of that set of photos.

Because Iran has been in the news (as usual, not for any good reason) I've been looking through photos and have found quite a few I never processed. So there may be some more Iran pictures in the next couple of weeks, before I leave for the first of two planned trips to Canada this summer.

Sunday bird blogging

A tale of two herons: a great blue heron near the hotel in Hilton Head, and little blue herons nesting on Pinckney Island.

The nest picture isn't great, but I love that bird on the top staring so intently.

Ibis Pond

This is where the egrets, and various herons, were nesting. It was a little oasis in the midst of the marshes, although it's home to several alligators along with the birds.

They weren't showing themselves, but I wouldn't have wanted to go swimming, however tempting the water looked.

Speaking of alien

A better look at the sand fiddler crabs that frolicked by the thousands in the marshes.

I have to admit they gave me the creeps, maybe because they seemed more like very large insects than very small crabs. And there were so many of them! 

Personally I would rather have been eaten by alligators -- which are also plentiful on Pinckney Island, although fortunately I didn't encounter any -- than get too close to these things.

An inhospitable landscape

Views over the salt marshes on Pinckney Island. Those little black spots all over the water are crabs.

This island was once part of a plantation belonging to a Major General Pinckney. My own ancestors settled all over the South -- Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama -- in the 17th and 18th centuries, sometimes in environments very similar to this, but I can't imagine wanting to live here, wanting to claim it as my own, calling it home. It's so alien to me.

Bonus bird blogging

Here's the rookery minus the telephoto lens -- a tree full of young egrets.

Sunday bird blogging

As promised, here's another look at the egret nest at the Pinckney Island wildlife refuge.

I did the shortest of the available hikes and that was almost more than I could handle. The trail passed through salt marshes with no shelter from the sun, and not much in the way of wildlife to observe except for thousands of tiny crabs scuttling over the sands. 

But the pond at the end was beautiful and worth the hike. This egret rookery had dozens of birds and lots of babies, and I could almost see them through the sheets of sweat pouring over my face.

Sunday bird blogging

This is a  crop from a bigger picture I'll post later, but I have to highlight these adorable baby egrets from Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge yesterday.