7-15-18 to 7-21-18 (Week 20)

Sunday
As much as I wanted to sleep in today, I wanted more to go behind the locked gates of the Refuge.  It was well worth my early wake up call.

We saw a lot of new and old species of birds and plants.  One of the new wildflower blooms we found on the Refuge today was Orange-Fringed Orchids.  One of the new species of birds we saw today on the Refuge was an Anhinga.  We took pictures of the Anhinga while he was chattering away.

We only had 9 Mississippi Sandhill Crane sightings.  Two of them, we saw as soon as we entered Brown's Trail.

We always spook the Cranes that are near the pen on Brown's Trail.  We decided to park and walk and see if we could sneak up on them.  We had only taken a few steps when 3 of them flew off.  We just can't outsmart them.

Lauren has a keen eye for wildlife.  His prize pic of the day, is a Bull Frog in the water on Valentine Trail.

We thought we weren't going to see any Deer or Great Blue Herons until we saw a nice size Buck and a Great Blue Heron on our way out of Firetower Trail.

This afternoon, we took a ride to the check out the campgrounds near by for Dave and June.  We found some new species of birds that we hadn't seen before during this short ride, the Boat-Tailed Grackle and White Ibis.  We also found a unique campground, Sioux Bayou.  It has a bar with a deck overlooking the water that had quite a few patrons for a Sunday afternoon.

Monday
Dave and June came to visit us at Camp Refuge for a few days.  Lauren has known Dave about a year longer than he has known me.

We spent the afternoon into the night catching up.  It takes a while when it's been over 4 years since our last get together. It's probably a good thing, considering how much fun we have.

Tuesday
We took Dave and June to Pascagoula to see Ingall's Shipyard then to Huck's Cove.  This is the first time Lauren and I have been to Huck's Cove and were able to sit on the deck because it is always raining when we are there.  We just did make it, the rain started about the time we left.

We rode in the flooding rain to see the Osprey and her twins at the Biloxi Bay Bridge then continued on to The Blind Tiger for an adult beverage.

Team Bud evolved from The Blind Tiger with our plastic emblems on our shirt and  plastic tattoos that we pealed off our long necks beer bottles.

We stopped at The Shed, to get fed.  The cashier laughed and said she didn't have to ask what Dave and I wanted to drink.  Yes, we still had our stickers on.  The food and atmosphere was as good as usual.

Wednesday
Day 3 of the Shuler visit.  We took a long, leisurely walk on the CL Dees Trail this morning.  We must have spent a couple of hours out there.  June seems to enjoy taking pictures of the plants as much as we do.   We didn't see very many birds but saw plenty of wildflowers.

After lunch, we took them on the Crane Whisperer Tour.  We didn't think we would see very many Cranes due to the rain and the late afternoon timing.  We thought wrong.  The rain literally had them moving.  As we were watching the first cranes, we saw them jump when it lightning and thundered.  We had 14 Mississippi Sandhill Cranes sightings on this 3 hour tour.  Not bad considering the flooding rain we were riding around in.

Thursday
Life got back to normal today.  Dave and June started their trek back to Kentucky and we went back to work.  It was a slow but enjoyable day back at the VC.  After work, Lauren put a new motor on the main a/c in our camper that went out last week.  Luckily we have 2 a/c's and were not inconvenienced, except for Ferny Kat.  She usually sleeps in the bedroom during the day where is warmer than the rest of the camper.  Leaving the bedroom a/c blowing all the time was way to cold for her.

There is a beautiful sunset in the Savanna tonight as I type.  This will be the back drop in my mind as I drift off to sleep tonight, which will be early tonight.

Friday
I slept a little later this morning than I usually do.  After Lauren woke me up, I was slow to get out of bed.  Ferny Kat sat by the bed meowing until I got up, then bit my ankles to hurry me up to feed her.  That dang cat!

My slowness this morning continued on at the VC.  We had  9 visitors today.  I'll be glad when the attendance improves.

Saturday
The pace picked up a little bit today, we had 22 visitors.  The ones that came by seemed to be really into conservation.

More pictures are right here:

7-8-18 - 7-14-18 (Week 19)

We went to Crossroads Saturday afternoon after we closed the VC.  We got a lot of chores done around the house, went to our Dr. appointment, and rested up.  We returned to Camp Refuge on Thursday.

We were surprised to see quite a few blooms in the high grassy field at home that are also on the refuge.  The field needs cutting, but with all the awareness of the wildflowers in bloom, we decided to put this off and enjoy their beauty.  In other words, we didn't want to.

                                                                Pictures from Crossroads

                                                               Common Box Turtle (baby)

                                                              Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

                                                             Virginia Meadow Beauty

                                                              Stinking Camphorweed

                                                         Maryland Meadow Beauty

After 5 days of being in Crossroads,the CL Dees trail was in need of a few adjustments of plant signs.  We found new blooms on plants that were not there last week.  Although, it seems the new blooms have slowed down, it's still a challenge keeping up with them.

A Common Nighthawk was flying over us on the trail early afternoon making his jake brake sound before landing in a tree.  I guess his name does not mean he only comes out at night.

The Ospreys were very vocal today.  I believe their babies are learning to fly, or maybe we have another cry baby not wanting to leave his parents.

We went to the Jr Duck Stamp Exhibit at the Audubon Center Thursday evening and admired the talented young artists' work.

Friday and Saturday was back to the grind stone of work.

The rest of the week pictures:

7-1-18 - 7-7-18 (Week 18)

Sunday
It was another fun day riding around on the Refuge today.   Sunday is our favorite day of the week to explore behind the locked gates because everyone is off and we have it to ourselves.

As usual, we saw plenty of birds.  We also saw the most Hawks and Red Headed Woodpeckers in a day, although, we didn't keep a count of them.

There is an exhibit in the VC of a Loggerhead Shrike.  This is a mean bird that kills other birds by piercing them on sticks and eats them after they die. We saw our first one today, luckily, not eating a bird.

We made a tour of the South Gautier Unit, North Gautier Unit, and the Ocean Springs Unit.  On our way back, we took Hwy 57 and Gautier Vancleave Road.  I had to coax Lauren to go down Briarcrest and Rock Hill Streets to check out the neighborhood Crane residents.  We saw 3 more Sandhill Cranes, which got our count to 20, our record for sightings in a day.

The deer count was also up today.  We saw a total of six deer, a couple of them were beginning to get their horns.

And it goes without saying, we saw lots of beautiful plants.

After weeks of hard work, Lauren caught the varmint in the camper compartment, a big old rat.  One good thing about this July heat, it softened the glue on the traps, which made it impossible for him to pull himself out of the trap.

Monday
I worked the VC today.  Lauren, got to be a tour guide.  Lucky Him!!

Lauren took Janet and Aaron, (iNaturalist peeps), on the CL Dees Trail to show them the Snowy Orchids.  Afterwards, Lauren took them on the Refuge to see the Purple Bladderworts.  As an added bonus, it just so happened, a couple of Sandhill Cranes were in the road at Brown's Trail when they rode by on Gautier Vancleave Road.

I have to say, Lauren really enjoyed his morning.  He really works hard at researching all this nature stuff, and interacting with Janet and Aaron, was icing on the cake.

One of the tadpoles made it to Frog status today and will be released to the vernal pond.  We still have 3 more to grow!!

Tuesday
After a couple of days of attempting to rearrange the plant signs on the CL Dees Trail, we finally had success today.   The rain may have hindered our efforts, but it does the plants a lot of good.

We went to Fountainebleu Trail on our day off to walk.  We found out the bushes needed cutting back, so we took care of some of it while we were there.  After we finished cutting bushes, Lauren said if I was too tired, we would skip the walk.  Not a problem, I walk with my legs not my shaky worn out arms.

We found some interesting clothing items at the beginning of the trail.  Unfortunately, we had limbs loaded in the back of the truck on top of the trash grabbers.  We will get pick it up next time.

Our day off was spent doing the things we love, taking care of the Refuge.

Wednesday
We were undecided of what we wanted to do for the 4th of July.  We thought about spending the 4th behind the locked gates of the Refuge, we thought about just sleeping in and hanging at Camp Refuge.  When we woke up this morning, it was a no brainer, we headed to the beach.

We stopped by Micky D's and picked up breakfast to go.  It was a delicious breakfast picnic on the bench of the boardwalk in Biloxi while watching the numerous birds fishing for their feast in the gulf.

We walked the boardwalk and took lots of pictures until the temps heated up.  We made a stop at Island View to spend our free play then made several stops along the beach on our way back to camp.

We saw a lot of Ospreys catching fish and flying away.

We saw an Osprey with her twins nesting on a pole near the base of the Biloxi/Ocean Springs Bridge.

After a walk on the CL Dees Trail, we did the traditional grilling of ribs this afternoon, that were awesome.  We listened to the pop of the fireworks until after dark, which didn't bother the neighborhood Coon for his feast of bird seed on the ground.

Thursday
It was a really slow day at the VC.  Lauren mowed pretty much all of Headquarters, Pat and I manned the center.

We sat around after work and watched the birds enjoying their feast of seeds and nectar at Camp Refuge.

Friday
Lauren was going to Independence Shop to mow grass when he was stopped by Danny, LEO.  Danny advised Lauren to stay around Headquarters because of the search for an escaped inmate.  Danny was dressed in his bullet proof vest and was assisting with the manhunt.

It was a very slow day at the VC.

Saturday
We didn't have a visitor until after 10:30 this morning, then a few more trickled in.  Although, we only had a few visitors today, it was a productive day.

We had a couple make a donation to the Refuge for our one of a kind, hand carved, mahogany wood duck carving.  We really enjoyed talking with this couple.  They were conservationist, who had converted 300 acres of their land to Longleaf Pine.

Her husband showed us her picture in one of the books we sell in the book store.  It was a beautiful picture of her riding her horse in her Longleaf  Pine forest.

We are going to miss this beauty, but we know he went to a good home.

Crosssroads bound this afternoon.

The week of pictures:

6-24-18 - 6-30-17 (Week 17)

Sunday
Three Deer in the road and a rainbow in the sky greeted us this morning when we entered the Refuge at Firetower Road.  A few minutes later, we watched a couple of Sandhill Cranes fly away as we turned onto Ben Williams Road.  It was a great start to this early morning.

One of the plants that is supposed to be on the CL Dees Trail is Mountain Mint.  We kept trying to figure out what the plant looked like.  We finally found it on the Refuge this morning.

After a couple hours and several Crane sightings later, we left the South Gautier Unit to check on Baby Sunplex.   We didn't see him nor his parents.  Hopefully, they are just chilling out in the shade somewhere to get away from the heat.

The Crane sightings continued as we traveled on Brown's Trail in the North Gautier Unit.  We had a great picnic breakfast, sitting in the van, (AKA Ox Wagon), on Valentine Road while watching a couple of Sandhill Cranes nearby, who were not in the least bit worried about us.

We saw 15 Mississippi Sandhill Cranes, 5 Deer, a Turtle, plenty of birds, and of course beautiful plants and flowers.  Another great day at the Refuge.

Monday
It was a rather hot walk along the CL Dees Trail this morning.  The summer season has not altered the pretty blooms of wildflowers along the trail.  There is always something new to see, including a frog in his burrow under the park bench.

We met Anita for the night at Island View.  The new smoke free beach casino opened last Thursday.  It is pretty nice to gamble while looking at the gulf water and it is also nice to gamble in a smoke free atmosphere.

It would have been nicer if we had won, but we had a fabulous beach view from our top floor hotel room.

Tuesday
We lounged around drinking our coffee. enjoying the beach view this morning.  We ate our free buffets, talked with Jackie and Randy, then made our way back to Camp Refuge for a nice relaxing, rest up, kind of day.

Wednesday
It had been a couple of days since we walked the CL Dees Trail.  We found several new blooms since our last walk.

We also found a Ribbon Snake stretched across the tops of the grass, chillin out.  At least it was nonpoisonous.

Our neighborhood Racoon made his visit for his bird seed feast at dark.

Thursday
The start of our 3 day work week begins.  This was the busiest day of visitation (28 people)  the center has had for the last 10 days.  Things really slow down when the heat rises.

Friday
The Dusky Gopher Tadpoles seemed to have really grown in the last week.  One of which has almost absorbed his tail.  It won't be long until he heads to the hills.

On a sad note, we found out Baby Sunplex did not make it.  On a happy note, we found out the refuge has it's first fledgling of the year.

The Doves were very amorous this afternoon.  I bet this is where the term, Lovey Dovey came from.

Saturday
It was a slow day of visitors at the center today.  We utilized this slow time to print and laminate signs for our newly identified plants that are in bloom on the CL Dees Trail.

The rest of the pictures:

6-17-18 - 6-23-18 (Week 16)

It is Sweet 16 Week of our Volunteer Gig!

We spent most of this week in Crossroads.  Lauren mowed the yard Sunday, and I got caught up on house chores.

We went exploring at Big Branch Marsh Wildlife Refuge on Monday.  We took a hike on two of the three hiking trails at Headquarters.  One of the trails was very woodsy.   In other words, snakey.  We saw 2 Cottonmouths on one of the short 1/2 mile trails.  Luckily, Lauren didn't tell me they were Cottonmouths until after the fact.  I'm sure I would not have been brave enough to walk on the slippery rock-way, a few feet from them, if I had known they were poisonous.

We left Big Branch Headquarters when we saw the dark clouds heading our way and went to Boy Scout Road and Boardwalk.   We sat in the jeep while it rained and ate our lunch while looking for endangered Red Cockaded Woodpeckers in the trees.  We saw one, but was unable to get a picture.

After the rain stopped, we walked the 1/2 mile long board walk. It was a nice, leisurely, walk over the marsh watching the Great Egrets, Juvenile Little Blue Herons, Green Herons, Snowy Egrets, Wood Ducks, Black Bellied Whistling Ducks, Nutrias, Turtles, and King Rails.

The nice, leisurely, pace changed when we got on the 2 mile Boy Scout Road.  It was a road cut through the forest with deer flies galore.  After swatting our way to the overlook, we swatted on back.  Bug repellent did not slow these mean flies down.
Big Branch pics:

We went to Anita's to spend the night with her.  We had a short visit with Nick, Hope, and Madison.  Jackie and Randy were there and we spent quite a while catching up.  We all enjoyed watching all the birds at Anita's bird feeders.  It was so good for all of us to be together.  Just like the good ole times.

We spent the next day, lounging around at Crossroads, before heading back to the Refuge on Wednesday.  Lauren rigged up a new squirrel deterrent out of some boat trailer fenders he had laying around the shop.  We sure hope this works, considering the amount of bird feed that has disappeared in the few days we were gone.

After work on Thursday, we watched a squirrel try to get around the fenders and climb up the pole to the bird feeders.  He would hang upside down, then fall to the ground.  There really isn't any reason for him to work so hard, considering the Blue Jay rakes out a bunch of seeds to the ground while he is picking out sunflower seeds.

Thursday night we got to release some of the endangered Dusky Gopher Frogs with Angie and the interns, (Kelly and Sarah).  We loaded up in the truck with our frogs and headed to the Ocean Springs Unit to a vernal pond. 

After we traveled down a bumpy, muddy, road, we made it to the vernal pond.  It was not holding water due to the lack of rain this spring.  We followed behind Angie, who was carrying a bucket and what looked like a trash picker upper inside the fence of the pond.

We thought we were going to pick up trash.  Wrong!  We were there to pick up snakes that were inside the fence.  They usually find one or two snakes.  Tonight, we found six snakes.  Three were Cottonmouths, two were Ribbon Snakes, and one was a Water Snake.

Sarah took the three nonvenomous snakes and walked them to another area to relocate them.  The three Cottonmouths were placed in a bucket and drove down the very bumpy, muddy, road a good ways away from the pond and released..

Finally, at dark, we had the 31 containers of frogs in place for their release.  We let them hop out, one by one, from their containers.  Lauren's frogs went pretty easily, my frogs had to be coached out of the container.  I don't blame them, after all the snakes we found.

This was way more exciting than we thought it would be.  We had no clue we were going snake hunting, we just thought we were releasing frogs.

The things that are done to protect North America's most endangered amphibian.  We will always have a claim of fame that we took part in it.  Not only Lauren and I, but Anita, when she helped with the catching of the frogs from the tadpole tanks last month.

After work Friday, we sat around and watched birds.  Our late night last night, (getting home about 9:30), had caught up with us.

We noticed Saturday morning, that we are having a lot more birds at the bird feeders, since Lauren's squirrel deterrent invention. We rearranged plant markers on the CL Dees Trail after work today and did some more bird watching.

Releasing Endangered Dusky Gopher Frogs during our 16th week of this Volunteer gig, just made it even sweeter!!

More pics: