Chill Start to the New Year

 

I was eager to get in an early 2025 nature outing so on Jan. 9 I cleared my schedule and headed south down to the ACE Basin.

It was clear cold day with temperatures in the 39-41 degrees range. I felt it in my hands while walking around looking for birds to photograph. 

I knew the Bear Island Wildlife Management Area might be closed, and it was for periodic hunting. 

But I also knew that I could still check out Mary’s House Pond, which is accessible after parking in the entrance area. 

Having been to Bear Island many times (see this post when we took bicycles out there!), the large pond attracts many birds, especially migratory ones in the winter. 

I would not be disappointed! Tundra Swans were the stars of the show. 

Tundras are North America’s most common swan but you don’t see them too often in the S.C. Lowcountry. They breed in Canada and Alaska and migrate to the Pacific and Atlantic coasts during the winter. 

Here at Bear Island is the only place I have seen this big beauty. 

ACE Basin Birthday Treat!

On Tuesday, August 11 I headed down to the ACE Basin for a getaway on a special day for me, a certain landmark birthday.

A fine dinner that night with Alesia at Hall’s Chophouse and a surprise online get together with my kids and siblings would come later in the day. But by 10:30 a.m. or so I was at the Donnelley Wildlife Management Area located south of Charleston some 65 miles from my house in a place called Green Pond, S.C.

It was a very warm day but it felt good to be again roaming the vast and remote nature preserve once the domain of plantations (and slaves toiling in the rice fields).

To follow are my photographs from this summer outing.

First is featured some of the birds I captured in flight. Seeing a number of the distinctive Swallow-tailed Kites was a highlight. A veritable kettle of kits there was!  That is one of the collective names for Kites. "String" could be a good one too, right?


They and their close relative Mississippi Kite were spotted circling above a field near the lodge structure at Donnelley.

The Cost of Slavery- the Hutchinsons of St. Bartholomew's Parish (Colleton County, S.C.)

Hercules- $750. Hector- $700. Marlborough- $350. Molly- $600. Mary- $300. Betsy- $50.

These "Negroes" were slaves belonging to planter and lawyer Leger Hutchinson, Esq. And these were the values placed on each of them. A document like this truly brings slavery to life and light.

Leger died in 1815 at the young age of 24. He was part of a line of Hutchinsons who owned large rice plantations and hundreds of slaves in South Carolina's Lowcountry. Specifically, Leger was from what was then called St. Bartholomew Parish. Today it is Colleton County.