10-28-18 - 11-3-18 - (Week 35)

Sunday
We spent this beautiful morning taking a long walk on the CL Dees Trail enjoying our morning off.

We opened the VC at 1:30 pm for a scheduled group that never showed up.  Not a problem, the 14 people that were there for the hour and a half we were opened took advantage of the VC being opened.

We decided after closing to revisit the crane less observation blind on Ben Williams that we sat in for the crane count a couple of days ago.  It was a lot more exciting and well worth the revisit.

We saw 7 Mississippi Sandhill cranes on the way to the blind.  Then as a added bonus, we had a group of 10 Mississippi Sandhill Cranes fly into the pen around 5:15 pm and 5 deer grazing in the crop field.

We heard the elusive call of the cranes long before we saw them. It was breathtaking watching the cranes graceful landing.  After they landed, most of them stayed in the shallow pond.  One couple and their fledgling walked around and ate corn from the feeder.  As they ate from the feeder, two would be on watch and one would eat.

Then we realized the cranes were there to roost for the night which required us to wait until after dark to leave so we would not disturb them.  It was a good thing we hadn't taken our flashlight out of our backpack from the crane count.

Monday
 We assisted the Master Gardeners plant native plants in the flower garden at the VC.  It looks much better.
  Late afternoon, we saw Angie and Rose hauling the monster net to the pen area.  We are so relieved we don't have to physically pack that out to the pen area tomorrow.

Tuesday
We worked with Angie, Areal, Scott, and the interns on the Crane Pen on this foggy start of the day.  Most of the day was spent trying to figure out how we were going to get the net to fit over the frame of poles.  We pulled and pushed and wished.  We have the net over the frame and are a little short on one side. We will work on it again tomorrow.

The fire crew has the viewing stand up for public observation of the soon to be released cranes.

Wednesday
We had 6 people on our Halloween Crane tour this morning.  The first couple of cranes we saw were at Rockhill Street about 32 meters from the road.  They were not bothered by us.  They preened themselves and allowed us to view them as long as we wanted.

We saw 6 Cattle Egrets, 5 deer, a Great Blue Heron, and 5 Sandhill cranes on this 2 hour tour.

We spent the afternoon working on the crane pen with Angie, the interns, and Cassie.  We finally have the net in place.  A giant step for the Crane Pen building crew!

There were three deer in the back yard of the Bunk House when we washed clothes late afternoon.  One was a button buck.

As usual, Ferny Kat came out this afternoon and guarded the bird feeder, she loves to torment the birds.

We had some pretty good sightings at the VC this month.

Thursday
It was a rainy day today.  We did a little shopping and rested up.

Friday
Happy 7 Month Anniversary of our Volunteer Gig to Us!!

We had 6 people from the Gulf Coast Audubon group on the Crane Tour today.  It was a windy and cool day.  We thought we weren't going to see a crane today.  Our patience finally paid off when we saw 5 cranes and a Bald Eagle on the South Gautier Unit.  The eagle was perched in a tree and was very photogenic.

We also saw Cattle Egrets, Deer and several American Kestrels on the tour.

After the crane tour, we helped with the crane pen.  We got the electric fence up, the tarps up for  shade, and the net mended where needed.  We finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.  If you notice in the picture below, I was almost skipping with joy when we wrapped up for the day!!

Saturday
We had 7 people from the Gulf Coast Audubon group on the Crane Tour today.  Janet Wright, curator from iNaturalist was in the group.  She organized the tour for the Gulf Coast Audubon.  Her enthusiasm of nature has been a great inspiration and help to Lauren and I.

We had 14 Sandhill Crane sightings today.  There were a total of 21 bird species sightings.  We spent 3 hours on the North Gautier Unit and surrounding areas and never made it to the South Gautier Unit.

We worked on the flower bed and talked with visitors at the VC for the rest of the day.  Then joined Jeff for a late afternoon campfire.

Rest of the pictures:

10-21-18 -10-27-18 (Week 34)

Sunday
Anita and Lucy hung around a little while this morning.  Lauren finished mowing the yard.  We went to David's promotion/deployment party this afternoon.  He throws himself a good party.

Monday
We returned to Camp Refuge.  We finally had a campfire and smores with the Loews, something we have talked about for months.  We enjoyed hearing the Hall's and Loew's volunteer gig stories.

Tuesday
We were sitting around on this rainy day with no plans.  Carol texted and asked if we wanted to take a couple of biologists on a Crane Tour.  We were sitting on ready.

They were very nice couple who were very enthusiastic about the wet pine savanna.  Our kind of people.  As a bonus, they got to see 13 Mississippi Sandhill Cranes on this two hour tour.

Our first sighting of 3 cranes was very enjoyable watching Dougie and his partner dance in the light peppering rain.

Wednesday
Sally joined us on a birding tour at Dauphin Island.  We had a pretty, cool, day to hike around.  We saw a lot of birds we have never seen before and our first Florida Soft-shell Turtle.

Thursday
My Two Boots was rained out today.  We took the day off and rode to Gulfport.  A quick stop at Island View for an extra $20 and some pecans.  A few stops on the way back for bird pics.  I never realized how beautiful a Great Blue Heron was until today.

Friday
The very much anticipated Annual Crane Count day is here.  We got up at 4:30 am and was in the blind at Firetower at 6:30 am.  Before we could open the windows of the blind we heard them calling.  That sums up our count, a couple calling.

We saw 9 Wood Ducks, a Phoebe, and a bunch of Eastern Blue Birds while being serenaded by goat sounding frogs.  On our way out we saw a Northern Harrier and a bobcat.

And yes, we would do it again next year, if we get the chance.

Saturday
We, along with Melissa, set up a booth at the Mullet Fest in Gautier.  We were away from the main drag in the area with the goats and the pirates.  We enjoyed talking with the few people that made it our way.

Week of pictures:

10-14-18 - 10-20-18 (Week 33)

Sunday
I drove Lauren around today in the refuge to practice for the crane tour.  We saw about as many eagles as we saw cranes.

We went to both Gautier units and to the Ocean Springs unit.  We spent 6 hours enjoying the refuge.  We saw 7 Bald Eagles, (3 were juveniles), 9 Sandhill Cranes, several Red Tailed Hawks, a couple of Northern Flickers, several Palm Warblers, an American Kestrel, a ribbon snake, several Egrets, a couple of deer, and several Great Blue Herons.  Pretty good way to spend 6 hours of the day.

We continued the bird watching at Camp Refuge where we saw our first Yellow-bellied Sapsucker,  that winters here at the refuge. We also saw black-throated green warblers and gray catbirds.  The bird watching is picking up.

Monday
The new blooms on plants are slowing down.  We picked up some signs on the CL Dees trail, took a walk on Crane Lane, and lazed around camp bird watching today.

The plant blooms may be on the decrease but the bird watching is picking up.  The Yellow-bellied sapsucker not only likes the Live Oak here but also is enjoying the bird feeders.  We saw our first Black and White Warbler at camp today.

Tuesday
Just a laze around kind of day at Camp Refuge.  We saw our first Summer Tanager at Camp Refuge today.

Wednesday
We are making progress on the Crane Pen.  We started the morning with 5 of us weed eating inside and the parameters of the pen.  Afterwards, we got the metal post and PVC pipe up.  It goes without saying, we have a conversation piece.  The white poles stick out like a sore thumb on the savanna.

Thursday
Lauren and I took a couple of the Master Gardeners out on the refuge for native plant scouting that will be planted in the VC flower gardens.   Melissa had a program for the Pascagoula River Group.  Tom took the Grand Bay Sr. Citizens on a Crane Tour.  Carol had Colt Capers.  It was a very busy but productive morning at the VC.

Friday
Pat and I worked in the VC while Lauren went to check out the trash at Oak Grove Trail.  He was pleasantly surprised to find the brush had been cut leaving good visibility of the parking area, which resulted in very little trash.  We got up to 20 visitors today.  Things are picking up.

Saturday
We did a Crane Tour this morning with 4 visitors.  We were a little skeptical of seeing cranes because of the heavy fog. We saw 12 Sandhill Cranes, deer, egrets, blue herons.

Our first crane sightings was 3 cranes at Brights Pasture, Dougie did a little dance for us.  Our last sighting was the Bald Eagle at the Ben Williams Pen.  Everyone had a great time.

The week of pictures:

10-7-18 - 10-13-18 (Week 32)

Sunday
We spent our day off today preparing for our guided plant walk with the Master Gardeners tomorrow.

Monday
We had a group of 14 (parents and their kids) this morning for a non reader scavenger hunt and a self guided trail walk.

Melissa, (with our assistance, mainly Lauren's), gave a presentation on iNaturalist to the Master Gardeners.

Afterwards, Lauren and I lead a plant walk, which we thought would be about 30 minutes or more.  The group was short on time and only had 15 minutes for the walk.  It goes without saying , we were over prepared for this plant walk.  Oh well, it still went well.

After lunch, Lauren went to Grand Bay Shop to mow and didn't return until 5 pm.  I manned the VC.  Not the first visitor darkened the door this afternoon.  All the activity was before noon today.

                                                                   Didn't mow them

Tuesday
The SORT team (Special Operations Response Team), had an Active Shooter Training for refuge staff today.  The VC was closed until 1 pm.

We were given a yellow vest to wear so we could observe and not be shot at during the training.  The refuge staff were given 3 soft balls to throw as weapons and options that they could use if they encountered an active shooter.

The shooter had a nerf gun.  For sound effects, he was followed by an officer carrying an assault weapon shooting blanks up in the air.  A couple of Jackson County Sheriff Deputies were the first responders.  Other SORT members were recording and monitoring.

The staff responded to the 3 scenarios by locking themselves in closets, throwing red balls, climbing out windows, barricading themselves in their offices, calling a fake 911 number to give details, etc.

It was very educational and a real eye opener.  Something we hope we never need to know.

We consider the SORT team as the SWAT team of game wardens.  They are badasses.

Wednesday
We had our first official Crane Tour this morning.  Lauren drove the ox wagon, and I did most of the talking.  Our audience was a Grandmother and 4 home schooled children ages 9-11.  We told them we would come back as early as they wanted.  The 2 hour tour lasted 3 hours.  Our first crane tour was a success.

We saw 7 cranes, 5 swallow tail caterpillars, 2 deer, a pied-billed grebe, a king fisher, several great egrets, a little blue heron, and several great blue herons.

We spent the afternoon, helping Angie and her interns, Kelli, Shannon, and Rose, tear down a temporary pen at the Ocean Springs unit.  These items will be reused for the temporary pen at headquarters for this years crane release.

Lauren and I rode in Scott's truck, (lead biologist), which Lauren got stuck when he turned it around.  We had to call reinforcements to get the truck pulled out of the bog.

It was a lot of hard work pulling up and toting poles to the truck.  We have a little more to go back and get tomorrow.

Thursday
It was a piece of cake picking up the last of the poles at the Ocean Springs unit this morning but I can't say that about the afternoon.  We had a bunch of metal post that we couldn't pull the PVC pipe off without hammering the post to get it off,  but we got 'er done.

Friday
Hugh, another volunteer, joined us, Angie, and the interns this morning for another Crane Pen work day.   It is too wet for machines to come into the savanna so we did manual habitat clearing and restoration.

Lauren and Hugh weedeated around the perimeter of the pen and around the pond.  Us girls loped shrubs and pine trees, then packed the debris out of the area.

We got the metal post inserted in the ground for the perimeter of the pen. 

We enjoyed a Camp Crane bonfire this afternoon with Pat, Sally, Tom, Jeff, Dorie, their grand kids, and the interns.  It has been a long, but enjoyable day.

Saturday
We sat around and enjoyed our coffee and bird watching this morning.  It was nice to have the day off.

We made a shopping trip then drove back along the beach.  There were lots of people enjoying the beach, but not much on the bird sightings.

Pictures are here:

9-30-18 - 10-6-18 (Week 31)

Sunday
We spent this Sunday morning drinking coffee with Anita and Lucy and watching the birds at the feeder.  The rest of the day was spent in Crossroads, resting and getting things ready to go back to Camp Refuge.  The birds must be resting today also.  We haven't seen any at our feeders here.

Monday
We loaded up and headed back to Camp Refuge.  After we unloaded our stuff and Ferny Kat, we went to Cruisin the Coast.  Erica, Nick, and Anita offered us a place to stay for the night with them at Cajun RV Park.  We watched cars on Highway 90 for most of the afternoon, went to The Reef to eat, and then continued with the car watching past dark.

Tuesday
We were chauffeured around by Nic today.  First stop, breakfast at McElroy's.   Cindy and Jim Hunt had told us the food was good.  And they were right.  We haven't seen them in months until they walked in the door.  How ironic is that?

                                                                 view from McElroy's

We went to the Coliseum to watch the autocross, then to cruise central to view some vintage cars.  One man was nice enough to let me sit in his Auburn.  He even loaned me a hat and Lauren a sign to hold.  He was a hoot and a holler.

Ferny Kat was so happy to see us when we returned to Camp Refuge.

Wednesday
We saw 2 Mississippi Sandhill Cranes at the Gautier Church of God while on our way to do a little shopping.  The Crane Tours have started so we decided to go out and do a practice Crane Tour.  The cranes must be ready, cause we saw 26 cranes in these few hours.  A total of 28 for the day, another record broken.

We saw 3 in Bright's Pasture, 2 in a field on Gautier Vancleave Road, 2 at the Coca Cola plant, and 2 shortly after entering Brown's Trail.  When we got to the pen on Firetower Road, 2 Bald Eagles flew up, 2 Deer Ran across the road, and 2 Sandhill Cranes flew up.  As we were trying to look at all this, 10 Sandhill Cranes flew right over us.  What an exciting place!

We saw 3 more fly up from the pond on Beasley Road.  It is hard to practice a Crane Tour when you have this much action.

Thursday
This day off went by mighty fast.  After we walked the CL Dees Trail, we stopped by the VC to pick up a package and get Crane Observation Forms.  We spent the next couple of hours shooting the bull with Danny, Sally, Tom, Melissa, and Jeff.

We returned later to turn in the forms and showed Angie and the interns pictures of the 10 crane flyover.   After looking at them on the computer, Angie and Scott confirmed one of the cranes is a juvenile they are trying to locate for banding.

An afternoon of watching a few birds at camp and a little bit of TV viewing wrapped up the day.

Friday
Sally and Tom manned the VC.  Lauren and I went offsite to the Fountainebleu Trail.  The fire center has done a fantastic job of placing rocks on the paths and mechanical clearing of the Overlook Trail.  The forest trail is so overgrown, you have to push the brush out of your way to walk it.  Not any more, we lopped both sides of the trail to open it up.  The trail is looking good.

                                                                           Before

                                                                          After

Once the bridge is replaced on the Overlook Trail, this will be an outstanding trail to hike.

Saturday
Sally was our crane tour guide today.  We were planning on going out with her and some of our visitors but no one signed up for the tour.  She did an outstanding job.

We saw 5 cranes and 2 Bald Eagles.  The pair of bald eagles were perched in a tree, near their nest.  We should have some chicks born in the next few months.  We will keep our eye on it.

Lauren did a little bit of mowing while I manned the slow VC this afternoon.  We walked the CL Dees Trail and bird watched this afternoon.

The week of pictures:

Cruisin the Coast: