Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Santee Coastal Reserve WMA - July 15, 2014

I arrived at the Santee Coastal Reserve Wildlife Management Area around noon today - it's about an hour north of Charleston, SC.  I turned onto the lane going into the WMA.  Parts of it consisted of driving under canopies of trees laden with Spanish moss....it was creepy in a natural sort of way!


A little history:  The Santee Coastal Reserve is a collection of properties acquired by the Santee Gun Glub from their inception in 1898 through the 1950's and conveyed to the Nature Conservancy in 1974, which in turn, gave the bulk of the property to The South Carolina Dept. of Natural Resources that same year.  One of the members of the Gun Club was Grover Cleveland.

Archeological investigations in the area indicate that native peoples from the tribes of the Sewee, Winyah, and other related groups inhabited these lands as early as 3000 B.C.  Shell middens in the area attest to their presence here.  (Shell middens are places where the debris from eating shellfish and other food has accumulated over time. They contain shellfish remains, bones from fish, birds, land and sea animals hunted for food.)  Records show Spanish explorer Lucas Vesquez de Allyon visited the area in 1520...and a French entrepreneur operated a windmill and lumbering operation here in 1691.  Many more historical facts of various property owners through the 1700's and 1800's lead us to what it is today.

Three miles down the canopied, [mostly sand] dirt road, I see the camping area....empty!  YAY!  I will have the place to myself, again!  It fills up during hunting season, tho'.  I get parked and set up...there are little frogs hopping all around the site!


I don my long sleeved shirt, heavier jeans, socks, hiking boots and top it all off with my "skeeter" netting, plus spray with heavy duty Deet.  This is a swamp/marsh wildlife area....I was prepared for the mosquito invasion!  Grabbed cameras and water, the Deet, trail map, cell phone and I was off.

Right across the road from the camp site is the "Boardwalk Trail"....thought that sounded like something I wanted to investigate.  Into the forest I go.

The "forest" quickly turns into swamp land on both sides of the trail... I am already very thankful for my fashionable mosquito netting frock and netted camo safari hat!


I walk for about 7-8 minutes and come to "the boardwalk".....whoa!  Pretty cool!  It's a long walkway over a purely green swamp/quagmire.  The sea of green coverage is made up of teeny little swamp plants...each looks like a tiny, singular leaf.  A perfect ecosystem!


Of course, I spot some "wildlife" along the boardwalk...





When I come to the end of the boardwalk, there is a huge "meadow" of water covered with swamp greens...



I immediately look for bald eagles which are supposed to be fairly prevalent here.  But, instead, I see some egrets.  First one, then two, which team up and gracefully frolic-fly all through the meadow...they were having fun!  I always wanted to be a bird for a day...




I hang out there for awhile hoping to see who knows what, but finally turn around and head back across the boardwalk.  At the beginning of the boardwalk, there's another trail - Marshland Trail - I think it was called...something "marsh" like that.  What the heck...it's still early....why not?

Walking through the foresty swamp land, which is quite dark for mid-day, I'm still not bothered by mosquitoes.  They are around my netting, but can get through.  It's working!  Soon I see the light again and come upon a different terrain...open marshland.  First, this little "canal"....


Then around a little bend were these views....



The trailway walks you over this body of water...on the left is the larger area (above)...on the right, a much, much smaller channel filled with leafless trees, water plants and my favorite...the egrets...




Very far away, in the larger body of marshland, I could barely see two "somethings" sitting on a small wooden structure.  I zoomed in a far as possible, then cropped as much as possible...this is what I got.  Unfortunately I can't make out what kind of water fowl they are, but maybe I will see them again somewhere in closer range.

 
I almost continued on this trail on into the forest, but there was a little rumbling of thunder in the distance and the sky seemed to be getting a little heavy, so I decided to turn back, but not before a very large bird flew across the trail.  It happened so fast I couldn't catch a picture of it....I'm almost positive it was a hawk...seemed slightly reddish-brown in color and BIG!

A few steps later, heading back over the marshland, I hear a very loud and water rippling "KERPLOP" in the shallow swamp water. This was NOT a frog!  I'm very sure it was an alligator.  Lots of them had probably been watching me all along!  I looked closely but didn't see anymore....so I head back....

THIS IS WHERE THE ADVENTURE BEGINS!  It warrants, in my mind, a new post....so stay tuned!




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