Jekyll Island Joy!

This month we enjoyed a family vacation on the Georgia gem Jekyll Island. We stayed four nights at the Westin resort and could not be happier with the experience.  The hotel is beachfront, our rooms had ocean views and the weather was very good for relaxing and catching rays on the beach.

To follow are a bunch of my favorite photos. For a smallish 10 miles long island there was much to see and do.  Jekyll has nothing to hide (ha- get it?) with many public beaches plus some very interesting history and historic sites I was unaware of before this visit.

This picture was taken from a second floor patio at the Westin. The image is idyllic in the sense of summertime at the beach, I feel.

Grave Discovery in the ACE Basin!

Boynton Trail 

Yesterday, I had quite an adventure on the nature trail at the Donnelley Wildlife Management Area in South Carolina's ACE Basin. 

Within the Colleton County refuge's 8,000 acres is the Boynton Trail. A day can be spent at this place alone, with its miles of trails through and around former rice fields and wooded areas.

I have visited the Boynton Trail (this link is one of my posts) a number of times over the years. Several of my Donnelley and Boynton blogs posts can be found by using the "Search This Blog" feature to the right. I went there just two weeks ago and had a really neat encounter with a pair of Painted Buntings.  I will post some of those photographs in the days ahead.

After that recent visit, I was determined to get back soon. Here is why (see next picture):

Wrong Wren!

Something is out of place on this bulletin board in my garage. Can you see it?

It is quite an assemblage of photographs, sports letters, ticket stubs, business cards and other random items.

Maybe this Carolina Wren is a fan of the former Chicago Cubs (now Miami Marlins) player Starlin Castro, who is pictured on this 2012 Cubs schedule. The Wren seems to be giving Starlin a close look anyway.

A pair of Carolina Wrens were in my garage when I went in it to look for something. The garage door had been open for a few hours.

For whatever reasons Wrens often enter the garage when it’s open like this. The one flew out pretty quickly when I entered, but this one became panicked and flew over to the area by the house door. As it landed on things, I thought that would make for good photos. I gently opened the door to go inside to get my camera, hoping the bird would not go in with me, which it didn’t thankfully.

 So as you see I got a few nice shots and the Wren eventually made it back outside where it belongs.

Hawk Backyard Feeding Feast!

Back in March, I took these photos from my backyard. The poor Muscovy duck, I think, had been sick and that made it easy pickings for predators such as this Red-shouldered Hawk. I had seen the duck laying in this spot a day or two earlier and didn’t think that much about it.

B-1 Bomber Pix Blasts into the Newspaper!

I was excited to have a photo again selected as the winning entry in a Charleston Post and Courier weekly photo contest shown in the paper on Sunday, May 27.  The theme this time was "Lowcountry Panoramas." I took this photo on April 28 at the Joint Base Charleston (aka Charleston Air Force Base) Air and Space Expo.  See my blog post from a few weeks ago, showing the great variety of planes (and other weapons) on the ground and in the air.  

This recent image came to my mind. It is of a B-1 bomber that was among the many planes on display along the flight line. I took it with my iPhone 7 in the "Pano" setting.

The image, for a panorama contest, was different, admittingly, and that is what the contest editors, all P&C staff photographers, liked about it, according to the comments given.  Click on the images to see them larger.

This is the original shot of the big B-1 bomber serving as a shade shelter for folks on the tarmac at Joint Base Charleston. 

I made and framed this design. Such a neat event and I'm really pleased with this unique image. Am happy and proud that the Post and Courier folks liked it too! 

Survival of the Sago Palms!

It seems like it took forever but Alesia and I are so pleased that the Sago Palms that decorate our front yard area are back and as beautiful as ever- if not more so considering what happened to them in January.

On January 3, the Charleston area had a very rare heavy snowfall. We had five inches or so at our house.  See my Winter Storm Grayson post here.

While beautiful in many ways, we didn't realize how hard the snow would be on our lovely Sago Palms.

Yay Hilton Head Vacay!

I have so been looking forward to our long-planned vacation in Hilton Head! It marks a transition week between the just ended school year and a summer full of home improvement, book projects and other to-do items.

I will chronicle our Hilton Head trip with photos. Lots of rain was forecast, which had us worried. We end up getting two clear and sunny days for what we really wanted to do: soak up some sun on the beach.

Five days on Hilton Head was a blast. Friday we drove the short distance to Savannah to have dinner and spend the night. Our trip culminated in a short visit to the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge.

Checking out the beach soon after our arrival 

Nice leading lines, beach, clouds and HDR effect

Marked Dolphin Photographed in Charleston Harbor

Look closely at this photo (click on it), which I took in March while visiting Fort Johnson, which is on James Island along the Charleston Harbor.

Leaping Lizards- Check Out These Scuffling Skinks!

What an unusual sight to see in my backyard a couple weekends ago! Be sure to watch the video below! I stepped out on the back porch and heard sounds in the pine straw. I first thought it was a squirrel, then got a little closer and saw a long thin body with a reddish head and thought it was a snake.

Jail Visit with Students- Hopefully Not the Last Time!

On April 23 it was the last regular class for my College of Charleston course "Beyond the Grave: What Old Cemeteries Tell and Teaching the Living." The activity planned for this final session was anything but regular.

My intrepid students on their way to jail! 

We visited Charleston's notorious Old City Jail, which more accurately should be called the Charleston District Jail.

It was raining as we left our classroom for the 10-minute walk to Magazine Street where the jail was constructed way back in 1802.

I was appreciative of my students not complaining about the walk in the rain. They were, in fact, pretty excited- if not a bit scared- about the "haunted" tour that awaited us. What a way to end the semester we all agreed!

The rain made the jail look even scarier 

Randall Johnson, our guide from Bulldog Tours, was excellent. I have been on these tours maybe half a dozen times with a different guide every visit.  Each guide has been very good, with different stories to go along with a few mainstays.

Johnson, a self-described "homey from West Ashley," sure looked ghost guide part in his black clothing from head to toe, including the bowler hat on his head.

The rain had eased by our 7 p.m. arrival so he was able to give us a quick overview of the jail's origins, its long history of difficult if not deplorable conditions for prisoners, and its probably long overdue closing in 1939.

"Fourteen thousand people died here," Johnson said, "so there are lots of spirits inside."