I'm sorry Folks, I've been a busy bee. Brian and I have been to Key West, camping in Newport News, camping in Hatteras, day trips to Carova Beach, Oregon Inlet, First Landing Park, Munden Point and so on! Plus I work for the city of Virginia Beach Parks and Natural Areas department, so I have been neglecting the whole blog thing, which is kind of sad because I love it so much!
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Great Blue Heron "]
[/caption]Alligator river is an amazing place. It's an 154,000 acre refuge that has tons of roads to drive and explore including a few places to to launch your kayak or canoe and also a couple of walking trails...Today, our objective is to look for bears and red wolves... We started our trip in Moyock, NC (where we now live) and drove down 17 through Elizabeth City, Hartford, and Columbia... The Town of Columbia is a really cute older waterfront area... I recommend stopping and checking out their wildlife center for the sounds. It's beautiful! There's a pier-style trail to walk and who knows - you may even have a chance of spotting a bear!
We stopped and ate lunch at Mikes Kitchen in Columbia just over the bridge. This place was actually realllly good, I will definitely be looking forward to going there again! Usually when Brian and I go to Alligator River Refuge we try to just go down whatever driving trails are open... because you never know which ones are open and if it is you should go down it, because you might not be able to go down that trail again until the following year. We drove around and spotted tons of Tree Swallows and Yellow-rumped Warblers... along with a few Sulphur butterflies fluttering around.
....And as we were driving on one of the roads, we saw a large bird fly into a tree next to the Jeep....
Originally I thought it was a hawk of some sort, but then it turned and looked at us and Brian says "Holy Shit!! -- look an owl!" I couldn't believe it! I didn't know what to do..... I tried to hurry up and turn on my camera, but as usual when I want it to turn on quickly it takes FOREVER then I have to change the settings to manual and blah blah blah, because remember I use a Point and Shoot....ha..so I tried to get a shot before he flew off. This is the only shot I got....
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Barred Owl"]
[/caption]Honestly, I was happy with that single shot I had gotten, but then...the owl decided to fly across the road and landed on a branch...It looked back at us, not really worried about us being there.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Barred Owl checking us out"]
[/caption]I decided to get out of the Jeep. Figured if the owl wasn't that worried about me, then it wouldn't mind if i tried to get a few more shots! Well, once I got out of the Jeep the owl flew off again, but not that far. I decided I would walk down the road a little - very quietly and try once again to get another shot of this beautiful owl! It was almost impossible for me to find this amazingly camouflaged creature. I kept loosing sight every time I would have to take my eye off of the owl for a split second to raise my view finder to my eyeball. Oh man, It was insane how much it blended in with its surroundings!
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Camouflaged Barred Owl"]
[/caption]On our way out I saw a Cormorant diving in one of the "ditches".... when Brian passed him, he was going sort of fast. I asked him to stop and reverse because there was a bird I wanted to get a shot of.... He said, "Won't the bird fly off?" I said, "Nah, probably not this one" and sure enough, there was the Cormorant...now out of the water. He posed.... several times, and then we drove off. Oh it was great. I can't wait to visit this place again. Every season is beautiful!
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Cormorant Drying Plumage"]
[/caption][caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Double-crested Cormorant"]
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