We ran a few errands then caught the ferry back to Camp Secour on Sunday. Our timing was just right. We got there, loaded up, and sailed away. We had a few birds that caught our attention as we motored across the bay. We got the truck unpacked, and relaxed for the rest of the day.
It was back to the mowing extravaganza Monday. We cut grass at Camp Secour, the Heron House, and the South Quonset Hut. The campground was not too bad. The Heron House and Quonset Hut was a different story. It was more of bushhogging with lawnmowers, but we got 'er done. After the mowing we went to Pine Beach Trail to sweep and stock the vault toilet and forgot to bring our cameras. Very unusual for us.
We attended the Gulf Coast Solitary Bee Training at Perdido Key Community Center Tuesday morning. This is a really small bee that is dependent on the Coastal Plain Honeycombhead that grow in sand dunes. We will have another training day, then be part of field trips to see what we can find.
The afternoon we took Madison and Hefan on a sight seeing tour. They are staying at Bon Secour's bunkhouse for a couple of days. We sat on the beach at Flora Bama and watched the waves for a while. Our our way back, we stopped at Gulf State Park. We were heading to the pier when we saw lightning and decided to abort that thought. We went back to camp and watched the rain for a while.
Wednesday, was back to the mowing extravaganza. We went to the Jeff Friend Trail to pick up trash and blow off the parking area before heading to the Pine Beach Trail. After getting the parking area mowed and weed-eated we went into the gated community to mow along the side the road. I was meticulous with my cutting until after I turned around to mow the other side of the road and saw a dark cloud moving in. About half way back, the flooding rain started. I got in the truck with Lauren soaking wet. After a bit the rain quit, and back to work we went, until it started lightning. The first lightning I saw was far away, so I decided to speed up as I mowed back to the parking area. The second lighting I saw, was way too close. Needless to say, we loaded up and called it quits for the day.
Thursday, was a rainy day. I worked in the no visitor, visitor center. I spent my time cleaning, reading, and pacing on the front porch. Lauren did a few chores around the shop then took off on a road trip to pick up one of the new utility trailers. After closing, we went back for the second trailer. We removed the a/c in the RV Hut for measurements, which was not as easy as we thought it would be. The rest of the afternoon was spent sitting under the front of the camper watching the rain fall. This rain is getting old!
Friday, we proclaimed that we were not going to sweat today. That changed when Lauren realized that the ball on the hitch for the intern's truck was loose. After much sweat and maybe a little bit of swearing, he finally got the ball to tighten up using a vise. The sweating continued when we helped Alexis and Jackie move a heavy desk. We spent the rest of the morning running a few errands for the refuge.
This afternoon, we went to the Pine Beach Trail and the Mobile Street boardwalk doing a little bit of work and a little bit of nature chasing.
We had a beautiful painted sky tonight when we went with Matthew for our first turtle nest sitting. We walked to one of the nest, dug holes and covered the bell of our stethoscopes with sand. and listened for movement of the turtles. This nest had about 40 hatchlings that had come out a crab hole a few night's ago. We heard some bumping around, but we never heard a sustained waterfall sound that they make when they are hatching and coming out of the nest. After about 3 hours, we called it a night. Even though we did not see any hatchlings, it was a great time. After all, we were on the beach with the soothing sounds of the crashing waves.
Saturday we met Alexis and crew for a couple of turtle nest excavations. They were checking to see how far the nests were from the dunes and the water's edge, how deep the nests were, and how many eggs that had hatched. They dug for about 2 foot in the sand, pulled out all the hatched eggs and counted them. There were over 90 eggs hatched in the 2 nests that we checked and only 2 eggs that had not hatched that were infertile. A very cool thing to see.
While we were on the beach, the Dolphins were swimming close to shore. One of them put on a show, flapping his tail over and over.
After we finished, we packed up, and took the ferry across Mobile Bay and headed to Crossroads. We were disappointed when we stopped by the Sandhill Crane Refuge and there was no cranes around. We were not disappointed for long. Cranes NV11, 337, and their fledgling came in to feast on the yellow gold. It was so much fun to watch momma crane (337) pull out a piece of corn and feed the youngster while Daddy (NV11) kept a close watch on them.
