Have Camera, Will Travel.: January 2014

January 27
The North American cold front reached all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. By the time it got to Florida, the freezing cold and snow had warmed to clouds and cold rain. You could tell it was going to rain all day.

We did a quick tour of the nearby Fort Pickens. This was one of four civil war forts that protected Pensacola Harbour. By quick tour, I mean that Emma read in the RV while I hustled around the fort.

Days like this one are best spent driving, so we motored down into Florida to get away from the cold front. We did stop for lunch at Ponce De Leon Springs State Park. Emma was keen to check the spring for Manatees and I was keen to sample the spring water on the off chance that Ponce De Leon was right.

We had a nice walk along the banks of the spring-fed river but no Manatees appeared. We were also on the lookout for Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, but they were in hiding as well. Once we were through Tallahassee, we headed straight south looking for sunny weather.

January 28
We stopped for a visit at the Manatee Springs State Park. With a name like that we figured out chances of seeing the beasts was good. No luck on the Manatee front, but the park was nice and we got out first taste of a Bald Cypress forest.

Manatee Springs State Park

Grey Squirrel

Armadillo

Hundreds of Turkey and Black Vultures were roosting in the trees.

Bald Cypress Forest

Manatees need the water temperature to be above 70 degrees or they get hypothermia. The spring-fed Florida streams have water coming out at 75 degrees so these locations are attractive to Manatees when the Gulf of Mexico cools off in the winter. Unfortunately, the only aquatic life was one Double-crested Cormorant and a turtle.

Double-crested Cormorant

The Manatee Springs flow a short distance and empty into the Swannee River.

We arrived at Cedar Key toward dusk and walked about the town in the fog and fading light. We succeeded in getting far enough south to avoid the freezing temperatures in Atlanta and the torrential rains around Mobile.

Boat-tailed Grackle

January 29
We started the day with a 6 km walk around Cedar Key Scrub State Preserve. This landscape is specifically maintained to provide habitat for the elusive and endangered Florida Scrub Jay. This species is the only endemic bird specific to Florida. It requires low-lying sand scrub terrain with a few trees sprinkled about. However, 50 years of fire suppression have prevented scrub terrain from being regenerated by forest fires. Now, efforts are being made to re-establish this specific habitat by allowing controlled burns.

We had an enjoyable hike through the scrub terrain, but the elusive Florida Scrub Jay was nowhere to be seen. Carrying on, we arrived at Homosassa State Park late in the day. The prospects of seeing wild manatee rated to be pretty good, so we camped at a nearby RV site for the night.

January30
First thing in the morning, we stumbled across a Wood Stork feeding in a ditch beside our campsite. This bird was a lifer sighting for me. It looked to be the start of a good day.

72) Wood Stork

Homosassa State Park was pretty cool, with a nice forested area that led into the warm water spring that attracts Manatee in winter.

A free boat ride took us down a stream to the entrance to the hot springs. I guess hot is a relative term, as the water is only coming out of the ground at 75 degrees. However, this is warmer that the winter water temperatures in regular rivers, and warm springs are essential to keep Manatees from getting hypothermia.

Steam rising off Manatee Springs.

At first glance, the only action in the spring was a solitary Great Blue Heron.

Great Blue Heron

We consoled ourselves with reciprocal photos, then wandered around the spring and over the bridge.

...and there they were.

5] Manatee at Homosassa State Park

They were very slow moving and gentle as they wandered about the spring then slowly floated under the bridge and down the stream. They rarely came up for air, but the spring water was quite clear so they were clearly visible.

Many of the Manatee had deep propeller scares from boating collisions. These were the lucky ones as Manatee have surprisingly little blubber and don't fair well with blunt trauma.

We continued around this special park and saw several other animals and birds.

Great Egret

73) Wood Ducks

Yellow-rumped Warblers were about in large numbers.

74) White Ibis were also plentiful and easy to approach.

We didn't make a lot of miles that day but we have a lot of memories.

January 16 -20

Our quest to visit every National Parks in North America continues. To date, we have visited 26 National Parks and 13 National Monuments in the USA. In Canada, we have visited 11 National Parks. On this trip, we will be traveling through the states east of the Mississippi River and south of the Mason Dixon line.

Our RV was stored in Dallas so we took the most economical route to retrieve it. First, we took the train from Vancouver to Seattle then hopped a flight to Phoenix and transferred to a flight to Dallas. This circuitous route was much less expensive than flying out of Vancouver, BC.

The Dallas Great-tailed Grackles were the first birds to greet us when we arrived at our RV.

1) Great-tailed Grackle - male

Great-tailed Grackle - female

We got the RV out of storage and into the Denton Camping World for a tune-up. A side trip to Ray Roberts State Park was lots of fun until we got lost on one of the trails. Instead of two miles round trip we had gone four miles before we realized we were not circling back to the RV. However, it was a warm 65 degrees so we made the best of our extended hike.

Ray Roberts State Park

There were deer in the bushes and lots of vultures circling overhead.

1] White-tailed Deer

As the vultures checked us out I was able to get clear photos of the distinctive black and grey wing patterns that enable you to distinguish between Turkey Vultures and Black Vultures. Call me crazy but I would want to know what species is checking me out as a potential dinner.

5) Black Vulture

6) Turkey Vulture

Eventually, they drifted off when they realized that we were not packing it in any time soon.

January 22
We motored out of Dallas and headed east toward Vicksburg in Mississippi. For an afternoon walk, we went to the Caddo National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. It was a beautiful site with lots of overgrown paved streets running through a quiet forest.

Turns out that this location was a chemical munitions factory during the Second World War then was used to dismantle nuclear weapons when the USA and USSR reduced their arsenal. Now it's a National Wildlife Refuge.
As I've said to Emma "I'll take you places that most people don't get to see."

We had a very pleasant undisturbed walk through the deserted forest. All of the local population had cleared out long ago and were not coming back any time soon but the indigenous animals were happy to reclaim the forest.

2] Armadillo

29) Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Thursday, January 23
We crossed the mighty Mississippi and entered Vicksburg about 1:00 p.m.

The Mississippi River at Vicksburg.

As it was during the civil war, Vicksburg is still a major transportation centre with commanding heights overlooking the Mississippi River.

Statue of Grant at Vicksburg

Statue commemorating the African-American soldiers that fought at Vicksburg.

The Vicksburg battlefield was well preserved. It is a very strong defensive position and when frontal assaults failed, the town was put under siege and pounded by Grant's artillery until it surrendered.

The American Civil War is a good example of how hard it is for an established society to change one of its initial premises. Slavery was abolished but at a terrible cost in blood.

Emma is not impressed by National Historic sites that involve violence so we tend to focus on nature. I snapped a few bird photos and we had a nice dinner in downtown Vicksburg.

32) Savannah Sparrow

34) Eastern Bluebird

Friday, January 24
A major cold front was forecast and freezing temperatures would reach down as far as Atlanta. We scuttled out plans to go to The Great Smoky Mountains National Park and headed hard and fast for the Gulf of Mexico. We had not traveled thousands of miles to experience freezing temperatures. We dropped through central Mississippi aiming for the Gulf Islands National Seashore.

Saturday, January 25
Finally, a sunny day. We went for an extended walk through the forested trails of the Gulf Islands National Seashore

Blue Jay

38) Yellow-rumped Warbler

The walk along the Davis Bayou Trail went through diverse ecosystems from pine forest to marsh. More tropical plants were present as we enjoyed our crisp morning walk.

As we passed each marshy pond we looked closely for our first Alligators of this trip. Instead, we saw a small flock of Hooded Mergansers.

42) Hooded Merganser

In the afternoon, we drove along the Mississippi coast and arrived at Dauphin Island at the entrance to Mobile Bay in Alabama.We camped beside the world famous Audubon Bird Sanctuary.

January 26

It was another cool, crisp, sunny day as we started the morning with a walk through the bird sanctuary.

Emma at the Dauphin Island Bird Sanctuary

47) Brown Thrasher

48) Great Horned Owl

This Great horned Owl was nesting on an Osprey platform. It had a commanding view of the forest and marsh.

49) Great Blue Heron

51) Black Skimmer

At noon, we got into the nearby ferry line-up to go across Mobile Bay and avoid the big city. Unfortunately, the low tide prevented RVs from unloading safely at the other side so we could not board the ferry. As Robbie Burns so aptly wrote "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley an' leave us nought but grief an' pain for promised joy."

We are not big city enthusiasts because the traffic is always intense and many drivers appear to have a death wish. Anyway, I made the best of it and part way through Mobile managed to slide into Battleship Park.

The Battleship Alabama

A visit to the battleship would have been interesting for me but Emma would choose dental surgery over those plans. Instead, we took a few telephoto pictures of the ship and the Mobile skyline.