First Five Days of May … From Rainy & Windy to Sunny & Windy

Sunday, 5 May
Gulf State Park  — Gulf Shores, Alabama
Temps: Lo 51F / Hi 70F (10.5C / 21C)

The title of this post says it all.  So that’s it for this blog entry!

OK ... I’m kidding.  Here are the words and the images to wrap up our stay at Gulf State Park.  Brace yourselves … this is a long one.

If there’s been one constant since leaving April behind, it’s the wind.  I’m not talking gentle, cooling breezes.  Rather, winds that rock the Phaeton and keep the toppers flapping all day long.  No weather alerts or warnings, just a lot of constant wind.  We survived; and so did the screen shelter, which was flailed about by gusts reaching 25-40 mph (40-65 kph).

Wednesday, May 1 …

The overcast skies threatened rain all day long, so we didn’t venture far.  A 2½-mile (4 km) walk around the campground loops served as exercise, and gave us an opportunity to pick out preferred sites should we find our way back here.  Except for the occasional sprinkle, the wet stuff held off until after nightfall.  Then, we really got dumped on.  All night long.  And into mid-morning on Thursday.  By 10:30p, the wind gusts were so bad that we pulled in the rear driver’s side slide just so we could get some sleep.

This was a no-shutter-click day.

Thursday, May 2 …

Another overcast day, with rain falling until mid-morning.  The wind abated a bit, but only in comparison to the night before.  We still had gusts in the 25 mph (40 kph) range.

The yucky weather was good for one thing — errands.  So we made a run to Pensacola, Florida — about 30 miles (48 km) away.

Grooming appointments; grocery shopping at the NAS Pensacola commissary; finding a locksmith to get a spare remote key made; a “naked” fish & chips lunch with a side of senate bean soup at our favorite Irish Pub — McGuire’s; and fresh fish and gelato from Joe Patti’s.  A productive afternoon.  Clicked the shutter only when Mui spied a mural and pointed it out to me.

Located on Government Street, this mural is on the side of an environmental services company.

The sun made a valiant, but unsuccessful attempt to break through the clouds in the afternoon.  At least the rain gave us a break; except for one big dump late in the evening, no wet stuff fell through the afternoon, and the puddles in the grass clearing had a chance to dry out a bit.

Friday, May 3 …

Some sprinkles; otherwise a dry and gloomy day.  But winds from the NNW blew strong.  Despite the not-so-grand weather, we took the trikes out for a 10-mile (16 km) ride on the Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail.  Entertainment of the day: watching an eastern cottontail rabbit build a nest next to the electric pedestal at our site.  Running under the motorhome to the clearing on the other side, the bunny made countless trips with bunches of grass and sticks clutched between its teeth.  By nightfall, there was no evidence of the nest.  Don’t know if there is a litter under the cover she placed on the nest; won’t be messing around with it to find out.  No photo ops; just memories tucked into our minds.

Saturday, May 4

Woke up to a temp of 49F (9F); our coldest in a while.  But the forecast called for a dry day with plenty of sunshine.

Time to go out and play.  We bundled up and headed out to Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, the first of the two-stops we had planned for the day.

Bon Secour NWR is 14 miles (22.4 km) from Gulf State Park;
our second stop, Fort Morgan, another 12.7 miles (20 km) from there.

The refuge, which was established in 1980, “encompasses some of Alabama’s last remaining undisturbed coastal barrier habitat.”  From the four trails open to visitors, we chose the Pine Beach Trail.  Four miles (6.4 km) round trip, we added another 2 miles (3.2 km) by doing the Gator Lake Trail.

The observation tower overlooks Gator Lake, with Little Lagoon on the other side of
the path (no photos as I would have been shooting into the sun).

Gator Lake from the trail by the same name.

Top: Spiderwort; Bottom Left: Sandhill Milkweed; Bottom Right: Indian Blanket.

Despite the early hour, the wildlife was visibly lacking.  No gators.  No bobcats.  No opossums or raccoons.  Nor did we see any songbirds — except for mockingbirds — although we heard them singing deep in the brush.  Great blue herons and egrets were off in the distance.  There were quite a few ospreys, but they were mostly flying high; and the one we saw sitting on the nest flew off as soon as we stopped.  We moved on quickly so that she could return to the nest, in case there were eggs needing her attention.

Mockingbird

Osprey

For Mui, the highlight of our visit were the stingrays.
Swimming at the edge of Little lagoon, this one nearly beached itself trying to get a look at us.

The Pine Beach Trail is considered moderate to strenuous.  We didn’t find it to be so, although walking through soft sand near the end of the trail wasn’t easy.  Once we reached the dunes, either side of the trail was roped off as nesting areas. Nesting for which birds?  Don’t know, but we saw lots of swallow-like birds flitting about here.

Healthy looking dunes on the way to the beach overlooking Bon Secour Bay.

We arrived at the beach to the wind gusting and the sand blowing.  Undeterred, we sat for a while, enjoying our snacks, and watching the pelicans fishing offshore and a lone sanderling running about on the beach.

Sanderling braving a sand storm to feed in the surf.

Our next stop of the day took us to Fort Morgan.  Located at Mobile Point on the tip of the barrier island, the fort is appropriately nicknamed the “Guardian of the Bay.”  Once part of the Third System Coastal Defense System, it was built in 1834.  Fort Morgan played a role in the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864 — although not a very successful one since Admiral Farragut (of “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” fame) managed to get his ships past the fort and into the bay with the loss of just a single ship.  Following the Civil War, the fort went through a series of deactivations and reactivations, and was finally deactivated and turned over to the State of Alabama in 1946.

Burrowing through the glacis, the upward sloping ground (top right),
the postern (left) connects to the dry moat (bottom right).  The brick-lined
Drain that runs through the ditch carries rainwater out of the dry moat.

Fort Morgan is on the grounds of a state historic park by the same name.  The $7 pp entrance fee would have been enough to deter us from going into the park.  But when we queried about a military discount, Mui gained free admittance, and we only had to pay $3 for my entrance fee.

Mui finds a spot to rest where the Mobile Bay Lighthouse once stood in
the center of the Lighthouse Battery.

Parking the car, we headed to the small museum first.  Lots of information, but we’re not big on written exhibits, so we quickly browsed through the displays and left to do a self-guided tour of the fort.

The casemates, as these arched rooms are known, were designed as protected gun
positions, but few cannons were ever mounted.  Instead, the casemates were used for
the storage of food and equipment, and occasionally as living quarters for troops.

The wind was blowing strong everywhere we walked in and around the fort.  Foregoing any thoughts of enjoying our late snack/lunch on the beach, we looked for an alternative spot.  Eventually, after climbing some seriously steep stairs with risers obviously not designed for shorties like me, we found a secluded corner in one of the gun emplacements.

Left: this bricked-up casemate was just too funny to pass without taking a photo.
Do you see what we saw?

Right: see what I mean By seriously steep stairs?

In closing this day …  one of the surprises for me was the view from the ramparts of all the offshore oil platforms in Mobile Bay.  It wasn’t their presence that surprised me; I expected to see them.  I just didn’t expect to see them as close to the shoreline as some of them were.

I have to admit that there might be a bit of a subliminal message
in the way I took the photo on the right.

An afternoon at home wrapped up the day.

Back to Today …

Tomorrow we leave Gulf State Park.  In fact, we leave Alabama and move onto Florida, our “personal mailbox state” — aka .. our home state.  We prefer not to stray far from the campground on departure prep days.  Luckily, there’s plenty of fun to be had on the Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail.  Mui wanted to go for a trike ride, but with the wind still blowing strong, I wasn’t up for the challenge of biking against the wind.  So, we compromised with a trail walk.

Prickly Pear blooms on the Rosemary Dunes Trail.

What started out as a short stroll of a few miles, turned into a 6.5 mile (10 km) walk.  What can I say — even with the wind blowing strong, a low-humidity day with comfortable temps, blue skies, and sunshine was just too hard to resist.  And who cares if we got a bit sand-blasted on the final leg of our walk along the beach road.  Besides, we were still home by 1:00p … plenty of time to take care of departure chores.

White-topped Sedge

No Lefty at the gator pond today … it was still a little too cool for her to be out and about when we walked by her home, but I managed to capture a new-to-me bird and a-not-so-new-to-me Dasypus novemcinctus along the way.

The red-headed woodpecker is nicknamed the flying checkerboard.
According to All About Birds … This species has declined severely
because of habitat loss and changes to its food supply.

The Dasypus novemcinctus … or, as it is more commonly known, the Nine-Banded Armadillo.
Unlike the ones we saw at Fort Pickens in December, this one was less skittish,
and I managed to see a bit of its face as it munched on grass along the trail.

Next post … from Florida.

Blackwater NWR

Saturday, 25 July

Friday after work we headed off to Cambridge, Maryland, stopping en route for dinner at the Fisherman’s Inn, located in Kent Narrows on the Eastern Shore.  What the restaurant lacks in ambiance, it makes up for in tasty Maryland crab cakes.

The 226-mile (364 km) roundtrip drive was too long for an overnighter in the Phaeton, so we left the coach at home and opted to stay at the Comfort Inn & Suites in Cambridge instead.  At $160/night (incl. taxes) it was a bit pricey, but ‘tis still the high season in this area, so we bit the bullet.  For that rate, we got a clean, spacious room with a separate sitting area, and hi-speed wi-fi and breakfast, though we checked out too early this morning to take advantage of the latter. 

The drive to Cambridge is an easy shot on Route 50.  Though we traveled during rush
hour on a Friday, traffic was light and we didn’t hit any snags along the way.

Our destination was the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.  We could have just driven down for the day, of course, and saved ourselves some big bucks on the hotel room, but we wanted to be at the refuge bright and early, so staying overnight in Cambridge worked out better for us.

Arriving shortly after 6:30a, we certainly made it to Blackwater NWR early, but it wasn’t bright by any stretch of the imagination.  I have no idea what happened to the sunshine that was forecasted when we made our plans, but we didn’t see one single ray the entire time we were there.  In fact, our morning was overcast with low, grey clouds and occasional sprinkles here and there.

Since the light was so dull, I didn’t take any landscape pictures of this very scenic refuge this time.  In hindsight, I probably should have taken at least a photo of the brand new observation deck that just opened on August 12.  The 200-foot (60 m) long deck overlooks the Blackwater River marshlands and is a great place from which to observe the birds and waterfowl … when they are there to be seen.  We were skunked here, but it made a nice breakfast spot for us.  And we did see a bald eagle perched in a tree far, far away.

(Scenery shots (and wildlife, of course) from our April 2008 trip are in this gallery.)

My goal on this trip was to practice with my Wimberley gimbal head and also test a 400mm prime lens I rented against my 70-200mm lens (not that I have any plans to get rid of my 70-200mm; that one’s a definite keeper).  The prime lens was nice, but no comparison to my shorter zoom lens, which is far superior and gives me the same reach with the 2x extender with no noticeable degradation of quality.

Following is a selection of photos from the Wildlife Drive.  We made two runs on this road, which we had to ourselves until around 8:00a.  Then, all of two cars drove by without stopping except to ask us if we’d seen anything interesting.  I wanted to say, “Yes, and so would you if you got out of the car and spent some time here.”  But I was nice, and just told them what we’d seen.

In addition to the usual suspects of ospreys, great blue herons, and egrets, there were some small birds, such as semipalmated plovers, yellowlegs, gulls, and terns.  But neither lens had sufficient reach for the small birds, so we focused on the big birds instead.  Mui played with whichever lens I wasn’t using, reliving memories of his days taking still photographs before he got into videography.  Hence, there’s a combination of photos from both of us.

First, some shots of ospreys …

… and some great blue herons …

... Mui playing with the 400 mm lens ...

… here’s the lone greater yellowlegs I saw; a juvenile from the plumage …

… some great egrets …

… for a change of pace, a beaver …

… one of a pair of eagles that took off just as we arrived at the stand of trees where we had our best eagle sighting in 2008 (check out the gallery linked above) …

On our second time through, we decided to use the Key Wallace Drive to exit the refuge.  We were hoping to get a closer glimpse of the blue-winged teals that are making a migratory stop here.  Unfortunately, they were too far away for any decent pictures.  The drive wasn’t without its rewards, however, as we had our closest great egret sightings before and after the end of this drive.

This egret took off from the tree it was perched on just as we came upon it.  I took the photos from inside the car; luckily Mui’s window was down …

… and this great egret was strutting about a roadside farm …

And that’s the story of our morning at Blackwater NWR.  By 10:30a, we were on the road back home.  Despite the dreary day, we stopped at the Queen Anne County Visitor Center in Kent Narrows to eat our packed lunch.  Then it was back on the road again.  There was more traffic on the trip home, but we’ve seen worse on this road, so no complaints.  And we never came to a complete stop; which is unusual for a weekend even if we were going away from the beaches!  That’s a good thing.

For those who want to see more; there’s more from this trip in my online gallery for Blackwater.

Wildlife … Not; But We Have Murals

Saturday, 17 December

It was still dark out when we woke up — yeah, I know … no surprise there; we’re early birds.  We dallied in the room until the sun began its day, using the time to pinpoint a few places to check out on our way home.  By the time we left to grab a bit of breakfast at the Manhattan Bagel shop down the street from the hotel, the skies had brightened to a brilliant blue, but the sun wasn’t much help warming the temp up from the 32F (0C) that we woke up to.

(1) Wyland Wall and 9/11 Tribute mural in Wilmington, Delaware; (2) Russell W Peterson
Urban Wildlife Refuge; (3) Wyland Wall in Baltimore.

I love murals, and when I know there’s one not far from where I am, I try to seek it out.  When I was with my former employer, I was a regional manager for the Mid-Atlantic Region.  That meant making quite a few trips to our offices in Baltimore, Philadelphia and environs, and Wilmington.  Amtrak’s Metroliner service was my best friend back then, whisking me to these offices at least once a month.  (Trust me, I am not missing all that work-related travel.)  One of the sights I saw from the train window was the Wilmington Wyland Whaling Wall.  When a search of the internet revealed that the wall was just a short detour from our hotel, it was a no-brainer to stop by for a closer look-see.

Here’s how the foundation’s website describes Wyland’s whaling wall project:

In 2008, twenty-seven years after Wyland’s quest began, the artist and the Wyland Foundation completed the monumental goal of painting 100 life-size public marine murals.  These murals were painted in life-size dimensions to increase appreciation and understanding for aquatic habitats and the life within.  Perhaps, most importantly, they have reshaped attitudes about marine life conservation.

“We know now that water connects all the countries of the world,” Wyland says.  “Our goal with these projects over the last three decades has been to convey the urgency of conservation issues to the public.  The health of our oceans and waterways are in jeopardy, not to mention the thousands of marine animals and plants that face extinction if we do nothing.”

The completed Whaling Wall campaign is one of the largest art-in-public-places projects in history, spanning 5 continents, 13 countries, and 79 cities around the globe.

Photographing whaling walls is not easy as they are painted on public buildings, often overlooking a parking lot.  This time, I lucked out with no cars blocking the mural, but I couldn’t do much about the tree branches on the right side of the building.  Nor could I photograph the entire wall as that would have put me in the middle of a busy, multi-lane road.

WW 44: “Delaware Marine Mammals”
dedicated 2 August 1993.

The bonus for making the detour — another mural just down the street from the whaling wall.  This one, painted as a tribute to the fallen firefighters of September 11, decorates the side wall of Wilmington’s Fire Station No. 1.  Because of the fence and the wall in my way, it wasn’t easy to photograph the mural in its entirety, but here’s a look at it anyway.

a "patriotic tribute to the fallen firefighters of September 11."
dedicated November 2007.

More information about this mural can be found in the blog post here.

Our next stop was pure happenstance — and a very pleasant one even though there was little to see in the form of wildlife except for a few sparrows that were flitting in and out of the tall grass.  I guess the smart ones have migrated to warmer climes.  Can’t say as I blame them.

(Lest you think the image to the left is of a “real” bird; I am going to disappoint you and tell you that it’s a sculpture that is part of the sign welcoming visitors to the refuge!)

We found the Russell W. Peterson Urban Wildlife Refuge when we followed a sign that pointed to the “Riverfront Walk.”  We were thinking it would be a walk like the one at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor — it wasn’t.  But the detour was not for nought.  When we spied the sign for the refuge, we just kept driving until the road dead-ended in a parking lot with a building nearby.  It turns out that the building is the DuPont Environmental Education Center (DEEC).  It was too early to participate in any educational programs planned for the day, or view the exhibits, so we just wandered around the boardwalk instead.

Left: A refuge-appropriate mural at the industrial plant outside the gates.
Right: the refuge is named after a former governor of Delaware who gained international
recognition as an environmentalist, scientist, activist, and public servant.

The refuge overlooks the Christina River with the Wilmington skyline in the distance.

Collage of images from the refuge.
A flyover bridge leads visitors from the parking lot to the DEEC Building and the boardwalk.
(Yes; I couldn’t resist doubling my pleasure with a reflection shot!)

A wise old owl gets ready to swoop down on ...

… the invading red jackets.

By the time we left the refuge, the clouds had moved in.  Hoping the blue skies would reappear as we approached Baltimore, we headed south on I-95.  There was quite a bit of traffic, but it flowed smoothly.  Alas, it was still overcast when we reached “Charm City” as Baltimore is known.  As it was rather breezy and chilly as well, we had no incentive to take a walk around the Inner Harbor.  So, we made a quick detour to photograph another Wyland Whaling Wall, and got back on the interstate heading home.

WW 46: “Extinct Atlantic Gray Whales”
Dedicated 16 August 1993.

We ran into a traffic jam exiting from I-95 to the beltway heading west.  Rather than sit in the back up, we quickly switched plans, and took the beltway in the other direction.  Yeah, it took longer to get home; but at least the traffic was moving.  I’ll take long over stationary anytime!  Twenty four hours after leaving the condo, we were back home … just in time to eat the sandwiches we had prepared but forgotten to take with us for an “on-the-go” early dinner yesterday!