09/23/2012 - Moore Creek

Bees will work for the hive until their wings wear out or they drop dead. What would happen to the hive if 47 percent of the Bees did not work and demanded the rest of the hive feed them, house them, pay their medical bills, and take care of them for life?

Damselfly.

Great Blue Heron taking flight. (Yeah, there is still some trash in Moore Creek)

Skipper.

Meadow Beauty.

Fall Swamp Aster.

Busy Honey Bee working for the Hive.

Bumble Bee.

Hempvine wildflower attracts insects.

Skinny threadlike waist on a Mud Dauber Wasp.

Lanceleaf Rattlebox.

Damselfly. What do they see in their world?

Skimmer.

Anole.

Long Jawed Orb Weaver.

Crape Myrtle.

Flat Sedge.

04/19/2012 - Dauphin Island

Dauphin Island is a rewarding place to paddle if you like to see a wide variety of birds and marine life. This was an enjoyable 5 hour paddle along Sand Island, over to Fort Morgan, and back to Dauphin Island. I need to get away from Mobile more often.

Header image is a photo of dolphins at play. They are great fun to watch and there were plenty of them around today.

Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL) puts on summer programs for kids of all ages. These kids were on the Research Vessel Alabama Discovery with several educators. Note the dolphin near the boat.

I wonder if any of them got the photo of two dolphins almost hitting my kayak. Speaking of DISL, there is a big party being thrown at Tacky Jacks for support of DISL coming up on May 3rd. DISL has a lot of impact with school kids and is a good program to support.

A Ruddy Turnstone bird on an old stump.

These were some sandpiper type birds which I am not any good at identifying because they all look the same to me.

A Great Blue Heron.

The Red-Breasted Merganser is one of the fastest flying ducks there are. This one has a neat-o punked out hair-do.

Great Blue Herons walk around the beach like they own it.

Awkward! This Great Blue Heron kept trying to eat the bait fish locked in a plastic bag which it probably stole from someone's unattended fishing site. It kept trying to swallow the fish but the plastic was getting in the way. I intervened - chased off the heron, got the bag, opened it up, and threw the bait fish to the heron which eagerly gulped them down.

I believe this was a contract boat that transports workers that remove tar balls from the beaches. Nice job eh?

These is but one tar ball removal crew on Sand Island. Nice job eh?

I put a penny that I found next to some tar balls for size perspective. Tar balls of this size were all over the Fort Morgan beach. You're going to be paying people to clean these beaches for decades by way of higher gas prices. You don't actually think the oil cartel is going to use their profits to clean up the oil spill mess do you? One tar ball has a smiley face on it.

A lizard paid no attention to the tar balls.

One of the reasons I love to kayak around Dauphin Island and Sand Island is because of all the things you can see in the clear water.

Along side one of the Ship Channel markers was what appeared to be about a 2-foot long shark.

These pelicans were across from the Ferry ramp.

An Oyster Catcher.

Everyone is so nice at Dauphin Island - even the birds. Here is a seagull giving another seagull a back rub.

The black skimmer was saying, "I want a back rub too!" Based on the bulge in this one's abdomen, it may have had a back rub already.

08/18/2011 - Dominic Creek

Launch: Cliff's Landing off Highway 225 about 14 miles north of Spanish Fort
Launch Cost: Free
Destination: Exploratory paddle of lower Bottle Creek including Lower Fisher Lake and Dominic Creek including Alligator Lake.
Distance: 28 miles (round trip).
Paddle time: 9-1/2 hours
Weather: Slightly foggy at sunrise. Sunny. Paddled against tidal current going both upstream and downstream. Current ranged between 0.5 and 1.5 mph. No waves. No wind until later afternoon. Temperature was tolerable as most of the time was spent paddling in the shade.
GPS Track: To view or download the GPS track of this trip, Click Here.

Header image shows river houseboats lining the Tensaw River just south of Cliff's Landing.

Sunrise on the Tensaw River.

The I-65 bridges going across Middle River.

It was a treat to see Mayfly swarms in action along the banks of Middle River. Mayflies are also called One-Day Flies because in their adult state they only live about a day and their sole purpose in that day is mating.

I ate a few ripe Muscadine Grapes as they were growing wild all over the river banks.

Some of the green feathers are visible on this Green Heron.

Saw about a dozen blue tail skinks on this trip.

Dominic Creek is beautiful and eventually it gets shallow and log jammed.

This was an odd thing to see - someone had made sandbag dams across a couple of small tributaries off Dominic Creek.

A harmless water snake.

Do alligator hunters kill bigger alligators and discard the smaller ones or are these just natural deaths? It is a strange coincidence that Alligator hunting season just began and all of a sudden dead alligators are seen along the shorelines.

06/28/2011 - Alligator Bayou

Header image is of a red-winged blackbird berating me for being in its nesting territory.

1) Sunrise at the entrance to Alligator Bayou.

2) Much of the main channel of Alligator Bayou is grass land until it gets narrow and then the variety of plants increases.

3) Grass land attracts birds like this Bittern.

4) A red-winged blackbird advertising for a mate.

5) There were way to many flowers in upper Alligator to photograph and post here. 

6) The flowers ranged from big morning glories to tiny Loosestrife flowers with a streak of pink on the petals. I spent 2-3 hours in upper Alligator Bayou immersed in the moment, like a little kid in a candy store.

7) There is all sorts of life in the vegetation if you look long enough, like this tree frog.

8) I hesitated to post this photo but decided to share the intimate scene because it shows the tender side of nature.

9) A rather big chested fly hitched a ride on the kayak.

10) Not sure what this insect was depositing on the leaf.