Tripod holes 47


N 32°14’36.57″ W 80°46’9.83″ Google Earth location

On our way to Hilton Head Island many years ago, we found ourselves passing right alongside Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge, and stopped to do a quick tour. Nestled within the marshy wetlands of the coastal islands, it was brimming read more

Tripod Holes 42


N 33°31’11.84″ W 79° 5’54.55″ Google Earth location

I could put you practically within my footprints for this one, because I remember pretty precisely where I was standing, at the edge of the spillover from this decorative sculpture pool within Brookgreen Gardens between Murrell’s Inlet and Pawley’s Island, South Carolina. This was a sculpture garden, filled read more

Tripod holes 29


N 33°30’40.28″ W 79° 3’54.10″ Google Earth location

This wonderful close approach of a tricolored heron (Egretta tricolor) comes courtesy of Huntington Beach State Park, between Murrell’s Inlet and Pawley’s Island, South Carolina – read more

Visibly different, part 10

“So, Al,” you ask, eyeing me shrewdly, “why do so many of your initial Visibly Different images come from Florida? Is this, like, a thing with you?” But I scoff loudly, because it is no more a thing with me than holding imaginary conversations is. There are three reasons why comparison images start off from Florida, really. The first is, I took several annual read more

From the land of lumpy lizards


By that, I’m not referring to any of the arbitrary and silly boundaries like states, but the region where American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) can be found, which runs from the coastal regions of the mid-Atlantic US across the southeastern and gulf areas, but more so the further south you get. For this post, we’re simply talking about the Savannah read more

Yeah boidy


And now – now – we get to the birds! I bet this has been as anticipated as the finale to Game of Thrones!

To say that I shot a lot of birds during our week in South Carolina is an understatement, but it was a great lead-in to World Migratory Bird Day, which was the day we were to return, so I only had an opportunity read more

Brookgreen Gardens


Instead of hitting Topsail Beach again for our early summer vacation trip this year, we opted for coastal South Carolina instead, mostly because The Girlfriend wanted to see Brookgreen Gardens, but there was enough other stuff in the area that I could find plenty to do read more

Of dolphins and dedicated driftwood

This brings us to the last of the trip posts – I think, anyway. I’m not promising that I won’t write about some curious aspect of something I noticed while away, but at least this is the last describing the rough details of the trip. Feel free to be relieved. In years past, you’d have to blame the babysitter to get out of sitting through vacation slides, but here you can read more

My kind of exploring


On this recent trip, we actually got into three different wildlife refuges, although none of them at an optimum time (and all of them in South Carolina.) Nevertheless, we managed plenty of sightings and a few photographs here and there. I am, for some unknown reason, having a hell of a time getting the slide scanner to lock onto the colors, so these images are less impressive than read more