On one afternoon, we went to the Coastal Discovery Museum at Honey Horn. The house on the property showcases a history of the island, both natural and human, and included an exhibit of photography from around the Carolinas. The house sits along some salt marshes, and visitors can wander along a trail through the property that winds past some boardwalks overlooking the salt marsh, small gardens, some bee hives, an old barn, and even a native historical site that is being rebuilt. It was hot and muggy and totally made me miss North Carolina. We were there at low tide, and in the flat areas along the marsh, fiddler crabs scurried everywhere like roaches, the males waving their one giant claw to woo the ladies. We saw some herons wandering through the grasses and heard other birds chirping everywhere. A green anole scurried along a tree near us, and the butterfly garden was aflutter.
The best part for me though was when my sister-in-law and I saw a bluebird fly onto a low branch nearby. Neither of us had seen a bluebird in person before, and even though I'm the nature nerd of the group, we were both equally awed. I am always wowed by nature, but there's something so special about seeing nature through the eyes of someone else, especially if they're not the type to get excited about things like that. The next day, we went to the Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge. Again, hot and muggy, even early in the morning. We were hoping to see some gators, but no luck. We did see about a gajillion birds at Ibis Pond. I couldn't get any good close-ups because I realized after the fact that the super zoom on my camera only works when I turn on the digital display panel, which I don't use because it soaks up battery power. I brought my binoculars, and it seemed like my brother and sister-in-law really enjoyed getting to see the birds way up close through them. Unless they get into wildlife watching or hang out with me more often, they might not get to do that very often. I recognize that not everyone feels the need to experience nature as much as I do, but I hope that the experiences they had those two days made a difference to them. It gave me a new perspective on my volunteer work at the zoo as well, where most visitors will just walk through the exhibit without much afterthought, but a few might take away something meaningful from what they learned there.
Last weekend I hiked through Little Bennett Regional Park in Maryland, where I discovered some other new things, like the crayfish in the stream that eyed me and then scurried under a rock when I bent down to wash my hands after lunch. And the white-tailed deer that snorted and whined as it high-tailed it away from the trail I was walking on. And the giant red-headed woodpecker that startled me when I was too busy examining the map. I caught a quick glimpse as it flew by, but I didn't have enough time to see enough of the bird to identify it. Shortly afterward, I realized that the woods in that spot was particularly melodic and lamented the fact that I had spent too much time looking and not enough time listening to the sounds of the forest, so I sat on a bridge for ten minutes, just enjoying the sounds. Which unfortunately included road noise as well.
