Back on Wednesday when it was Word Snake Day, I went down to Goose Creek State Park specifically to find some snakes, which failed miserably. This did mean, however, that I got into a few areas that I hadn’t been before, and I went prepared for other subjects, so I captured a few images that worked for the overall bloggetty theme, if not for the day itself. So we now get to those.
Looking out over a marshy inlet region, I thought a dead tree out there looked a little odd, and the long lens came into play.
Even without the detail obtained here, the calls made it clear that these were laughing gulls (Leucophaeus atricilla,) probably the most prevalent gull species in North Carolina. Right offhand, I don’t know why they all found this tree so fascinating, but as I watched, another came in and sought a place to park, seen at right. We’ll go in closer to get a better impression:
Several of the already-perched gulls were disputing the arrival of the new one in the raucous manner that gulls have, and the new one had already been rejected from an upper perch. Height is both security and seniority to birds, the most dominant bird claiming the highest perches, but this is seldom agreed upon without at least brief contest. Presumably, this provides enough of an advantage, but the amount of energy I’ve seen expended in pursuit of this status (especially among hummingbirds) seems excessive. Now I understand how my teachers felt when they tiredly said, “Who cares? Just sit down.”
Not too far from this spot, I might have missed this guy entirely (again, snakes) had it not sounded off in a territorial way.
The light was not favorable and there was no way to correct this without a major hike out into a dense swamp, so we’re settling for this shadowy perspective of an osprey (Pandion haliaetus) polishing off its lunch. In fact, I hadn’t noticed the fish at first, since I’d tuned it out like the Spanish moss and the osprey wasn’t paying attention to it at the time. It was, in fact, paying a lot more attention to me:
I can’t get over how expressive this seems for a bird that cannot change expression more than a degree or two. I’m pretty sure my fly wasn’t down, so I’m guessing the shocked expression stemmed from my shooting into the light. Meanwhile, notice how lean the bird looks, especially considering the length of the wing and tail feathers – I’m taking this to mean it’s a juvenile, this year’s brood.
It did eventually get over its dismay at finding me there and resumed its meal.
I had dialed in overexposure to compensate for the camera reading that bright sky and darkening things down, so we actually have a bit of detail to make out here.
My favorite from the sequence, however, is this one:
Just seemed to frame well, with accenting from the Spanish moss. If I simply tipped it over the fine edge into full monochrome, it might disguise the fact that the light was far from ideal.
The park is big, and so I left the first area and drove a short ways down to another. While on the drive, I spotted something in the woods off to my left and came to a hard stop, then had to back up due to my lack of foresight. I’ve been there enough times before to know that keeping the camera on the seat alongside me, long lens affixed, is the best idea, and yet keep forgetting it. So when this subject appeared, I had to back up out of sight to allow me to get out of the car unseen and into the back seat for the camera. Once armed, I returned to the vantage that I had and began shooting out the window.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo,) and these were massive, twice the size of the largest seen before. As in, fill the backseat massive. I’m not entirely sure if there were two or three, since they were meandering among the trunks in and out of sight constantly. Which of course made autofocus go spastic and necessitated switching to manual.
Predictably, things were more-or-less fine while I was in the car, though they definitely noticed that the car had stopped. Once I slipped out to facilitate maintaining a view without lots of forward-and-back shifting, they drifted out of view quickly; many forms of wildlife tune out cars but become acutely aware of people. I soon moved on, but they were in roughly the same spot 40 minutes later on my way back out.
While I had no illusions that I’d find snakes there, I did a short trip along the beach area, which in one spot forms a narrow isthmus between the Pamlico River and a marsh. Within the marsh, I heard some telltale rattling splashes, as if someone was slapping the water rapidly with their hand, and though I didn’t see any ripples spreading out, I tracked the sound until I could see the culprit past the marsh grasses.
It was a mother mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) with a single duckling of about half size, giving itself a vigorous bath in the marsh. There was no way I’d remain out of her awareness and still have a view, but she made it clear that, unlike the turkeys, she wasn’t too concerned with people. The duckling, however, was a lot more wary.
This little guy started heading out away from me, obviously not thrilled with my presence, which was fine and expected. Mom, however, wasn’t convinced and stayed where she was, preening industriously, leaving the duckling conflicted as to whether to flee or stick with mom. I was too, really: the naturalist part of me said, “Go on, maintain a safe distance,” while the photographer said, “Stay in view and give me some cool poses.” Those were not to be had, but I could pick the frames that I wanted to use anyway, and this one was selected on the basis of the reflection in the water, where even the catchlight in the eye got doubled up.
After a minute or so without being attacked, the duckling drifted back alongside mom and they both started working their way down the marsh a little, yet mom still wasn’t done with her ablutions.
It was amusing seeing the roles reversed, since it’s usually the parent that insists on maintaining a safe distance from any threat while the young are too often oblivious. At the same time, ‘one’ is not a typical brood for ducks, so this blasé attitude of mom’s may have already had negative consequences. At least junior gives some indication that it’s not hereditary.
A short while later in the same general location, there was another hint of potential danger:
That’s the snout of a common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina,) a pretty good-sized one, and they are one of the many predators of ducklings, though generally when said ducklings are smaller than the one above. There isn’t a lot of warning that the mother duck might have of one of these approaching, either. Makes me wonder just what the reaction is when she realizes her duckling count is off.
So, no snakes, though I certainly made the effort. It still made for a productive morning shoot at least, and a better yield than the last trip.
