Tag Archives: South Carolina

The Devil in Hot Shoes

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A great egret flies through the air at Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina

I’m not sure if I’m going to win NaNoWriMo this year.

I did well in 2005, starting out strong on day one and the words kept flowing until I met the goal of 50,000 words almost a week early. This year, while I’m making steady progress (click on the NaNo Stats tab to see a chart of my daily totals versus where I should be), at the moment I’m way behind.

Which has surprised me, as I know what I want to write.

I didn’t get off to a strong start, on Halloween I was laid low by a nasty headache and didn’t eat a single piece of candy, a first for me. So rather than start off writing at midnight, I went to bed instead, continued slow for the first few days and am still struggling to get back on track.

I thought I would get caught up yesterday, it was windy and pouring rain all day long, a good day to stay inside instead of doing yardwork. But Ellie was in a mood yesterday and wanted to play hedgehog all day long, so combined with another headache I didn’t write as much as I hoped.

And then there is the devil in hot shoes, the Canon 7D, that I ordered on Friday and which will be here tomorrow. It’s gone from Phoenix to Oakland and has already arrived in Portland (not that I’m checking frequently) and I’m resisting the urge to go down and raid the UPS depot. There is enough new stuff on the camera compared to my old ones that I’ll need to spend some time reading the manual, time I would have spent writing.

And of course there will be pictures to be taken, to play around with the new auto-focus and see how it compares to what I’m used to, as the AF has been a weak spot on past cameras. While the Internet is abuzz about it’s ability to track BIF’s — birds in flight — that’s not my biggest concern. As you may have noticed, for someone who photographs a lot of birds, I don’t often photograph them in flight as I don’t find the results to be that interesting, unless the wings are flared coming in for a landing.

I’m more interested in MIF’s — mammals in fields — or even ducks in the water. And low-contrast subjects, like a black bear on a cloudy day, where my past cameras have been fairly useless for AF.

So hopefully I can still find the time for 50,000 words, but what I really wanted was to get back into a writing groove after a long layoff, and win or lose that’s my ultimate goal.

A coyote runs through a meadow in Yellowstone National Park

Snapshot

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Alligators sunning on a small island at Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina

There’s a tiny little island at Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina where I’ve photographed alligators, snowy egrets, great egrets, little blue herons, and least terns. On this occasion last summer, I just wanted a snapshot of the island itself since I knew it might be my last visit to the park.

I had focused on the animals when the light was nice early in the morning, so when the light was less nice I took a bunch of pictures to stitch together to create a panorama of the island – and as a bonus, there were a handful of alligators on the island, larger ones on the left and youngsters on the right, plus a snowy egret to top it all off.

Long Distance Goodbye

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An alligator lies submerged with only its head out of water at Huntington Beach State Park

It’s taken me a year to edit this alligator picture, taken last summer in Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina, and it’s also time to bid both the park and the alligators a long distance goodbye.

I used to visit Huntington Beach when in South Carolina to see my mom, drawn to the park by the chance to see alligators. Now that she has moved to Texas, I won’t be visiting the park anymore — it’s not exactly an easy drive from Oregon— but if you’re in the area, I highly recommend it. Arrive when the gates open if possible, my favorite moments (and favorite pictures) nearly always occurred in the first hours of the day.

These Bring Babies?

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Wood stork feeding in a freshwater marsh at Huntington Beach State Park in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

The stork might seem a strange choice to deliver babies in American folklore, as America’s only stork is the wood stork and it is not only carnivorous but also not exactly our most beautiful bird.

However, the tradition started not in America but in Europe, where the white stork often nested on farmhouses in spring when new life was emerging. The white stork has a feathered head and lacks the prehistoric look of our storks.

This adult was part of a group that was feeding in a freshwater marsh just before sunrise at Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina. Younger birds have feathers on their necks and back of the head but are still unmistakably storks.