SCDNR

Salt marshes of Botany Bay

The marsh was not my intended subject matter. Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you planned them, quite often in fact. I had decided to drive down to Edisto to do some long exposure photography at low tide, but conditions were less than ideal. Too many biting bugs, too few clouds, too many people, etc. I was determined to justify the (high) cost of gas plus my time so I needed to come away with something, anything! These were my despondent thoughts as I trudged back from the beach in the heat to the car across the stretch of marsh. As I stopped to swat yet another bug and set my camera bag down for a moment, I grabbed a couple of sweeping shots as a last ditch attempt to redeem the afternoon. Actually these two I like, and I did learn something from them too, ways to improve the technique. So, it is what it is. Can’t win ’em all. Kinda like golf.

The Shorebirds are back at Bird Key

Every Summer sees the congregation of thousands of diverse shore birds on Bird Key, a small island in the Stono Inlet between Folly and Kiawah, managed by SC Department of Natural Resources. I notice that it is now being referred to as the Stono Seabird Sanctuary. Regardless, it is recognized as an important bird area by Audubon and it is forbidden to land on the island during nesting season. It makes for a great boat ride in the evening. Even the Stono Bridge looked beautiful in the late afternoon light.

Bird Key, Stono Inlet

Because of current rambling limitations, I have been going back and re-editing some of my older images. Sometimes I am sloppy with editing if I have a batch of hundreds to get through, so it pays to go back and try and adjust exposures, color, and extract the most detail possible from these aerial images. Here are a few of Bird Key, just off Folly Beach and Kiawah in the Stono inlet, taken in March of 2016. Soon (if not already), it will be a hive of activity and full of nesting shore birds of all descriptions.

Bird Key Stono Heritage Preserve

Through most of the year, this small barrier island is just another one of many off the coast of the Carolinas, but during breeding and nesting season, it comes alive with activity. The diversity of shorebirds that crowd this space is nothing short of mind boggling, and the cacophony of squawking is carried on the wind for some distance. The smell also alerts you to your imminent arrival at the shores of the island. It is illegal to land, and really you should not get close enough that you change the natural behavior of the birds. These are a few images from our boat trip out there yesterday evening.