Another Great Weekend in CONG

Saturday morning we finally made it out to CONG to do some camping and relax a little.  I had picked up Joey on my way down, and when we got to the park I was unpleasantly surprised by the number of people that were there already.  It was about a quarter to 9, and the Visitor's Center doesn't even open until 9.  At least other people had not been able to go in and claim all of the campsites.  Boy scouts were everywhere, as is usually the case on Saturdays I've noticed.  This made me cringe a bit, but I was assured by Ranger Kate that they would keep to the group campground a mile or so from where we would be.

I was one of the first inside the Visitor's Center when they opened the doors, but when I talked to Corinne to reserve a site, she said I needed to pitch the tent somewhere to claim a site.  This hadn't been an issue the last time I was there because there was only one other camper.  As we headed back to the campground I was a little concerned.  There are only 8 sites at Congaree, and I had seen a lot of tents when we drove by on our way in.  Fortunately, the three sites hidden away on the far end of the campground were all unoccupied, and this is where we had wanted to be anyway.  I got busy setting up camp.  Before unloading everything out of the car, I decided to move it closer to the site.  The law enforcement ranger, Joe (whom I had not met at the time) was standing by his truck, parked next to me.  I'm always careful not to rev the engine when people are standing by my car---simple courtesy.  I was a little too careful and stalled out.  I got her going again and pulled out, revving my engine and leaving Joe giggling.  Always embarrassing, especially as a chick since I have to overcome the stereotype that women are bad drivers!  But I didn't give it much thought and carried on with getting camp set up.

A short time later, Joe walked up to the campsite, "There's my stick shift driver!" he said.  Figures.  We got the campsite registration taken care of with him.

Joey and I roamed through the nearby woods for an hour or so before returning to camp to meet Morgan and Cody.  Dan was not far off, so we lounged about and waited for him.

We heard word that John was coming out to spend part of the day with us, so we waited for him as well.  In the mean time we goofed off, drank a few beers, and made an atlatl for recreational purposes.  It turned out fairly decent.

So, John arrived and we decided to go for a hike.  Since we had Cody with us we had to avoid the boardwalk.  CONG is one of only 13 or 14 national parks that allow dogs, but they are not allowed on the boardwalk, and we were careful to respect this.

Not far out from the Visitor's Center, I think Joey realized the drawbacks associated with starting in on the beer at 8am.

Being a botanist, and suffering from impaired judgement, Joey got creative with a clump of Spanish Moss.

I think it turned out to be a pretty decent hat!

Our hike led us to Wise Lake, where I had been the previous morning.  We arrived as a family that had been fishing (unsuccessfully) was leaving.  We had the small lake to ourselves, and it wasn't long before Joey found a challenge that he wouldn't back down from.

But, trying to climb that tree was hard work, and he soon got tired.

He tried and tried and tried, but could not make it the last couple of feet.  So, he enlisted the help of a volunteer.

After making no progress, they called in another.

But, eventually, Joey had to admit defeat.

John took a very brief attempt.

And Dan, being the very contemplative, observant person that he is, visualized the outcome of his theoretical attempt.

I was impressed that we had not ended up with someone in the water, but Morgan and I got a kick out of the free entertainment.

We headed back to camp, much to the chagrin of Joey who had expended all of his energy trying to climb the tree and was already distressed about being separated from the beer cooler for so long.  He perked up a bit when we came across a huge sweet gumtree.  He called upon Morgan, and eventually needed Dan, to measure its circumference, which they estimated at about 13 ft. 

You see more pictured like the one above coming out of Congaree than anything else.  The reason for this is that Congaree is home to 29 State and National Champion Trees, trees that are recorded as the largest specimen of their respective species.  The "size" is determined by the height, circumference, and crown size.  When we returned to the Visitor's Center we checked for a Champion Sweetgum.  Turns out Congaree is home the the national champion Sweetgum, but its a little bigger with a 16 ft circumference.

As we neared camp, John and Dan spotted what they thought would be good firewood.  It's an interesting sight to see a couple of guys walking through the woods carrying a small tree trunk.

By the time we made it to camp, we had four small trees amongst us.  I had purchased a hatchet specifically for this, and Dan got busy making firewood out of our fire trees.

John headed home, and we hung about camp waiting for the coals to get ready for cooking.  Here's a rare shot of me.

We got the hobo-sandwiches on the coals and waited as patiently as we could for dinner.

It got darker.

We filled the night with our well-practiced Barred-Owl calls and scary stories of cold weather!

With a few gooey s'mores thrown in

Dan headed home and we went to bed around 11, despite Joey's protests.

I slept fairly well, but I think I was the only one.  I was in the middle, so everyone else got to keep me warm. :-)  I woke around 7, threw my sleeping bag on a shivering Joey, and headed out into the day.

After getting the fire going I headed down towards the group campsite in search of the Red-Headed Woodpecker.  I passed several boy scouts and scout parents hauling their gear out of the backcountry.  I asked a few of them if they slept well.  The answer was always the same.  No.  simple, curt, understandable.  Those kids and their parents froze!

I didn't manage to find the Red-Headed Woodpecker, but there was a lot of traffic in the area that morning.  I'll go back sometime during the week and try again.  I did, however, see my first Pine Warblers.  I'll spare y'all the photos because they just look like "shadow-birds" as I've come to call them.  I will share this Tufted Titmouse, though!

When I made it back to camp Morgan and Joey were up.

We made breakfast, hobo-sandwiches with smoked sausage in place of hamburger.  While we were waiting for the food a woman tentatively walked up to our site with a tent.  A ranger had told her to go ahead and set up her tent to claim the site.  She made it very clear that she was in no hurry to occupy the area, in fact, she was heading into town, and the ranger (Corinne it turned out) had assured her that we were "cool", and wouldn't mind.  I can't blame her for being eager to lay claim, she had arrived at 9 the night before and had to sleep in her car!  Her name was Mary, she was probably in her late 50's, and she was out traveling around, camping by herself.  I want to be her if I grow up!  I helped her set her tent up, talked with her for a while, and made some recommendations about the park.  It I had not been teaching first thing the next morning, I might have gone back out that night to hang out with her.  (I later gave Corinne a hard time for sending a "crazy lady" into our camp, and her concern when she asked, "Oh, was she crazy?" was so sincere that I almost felt bad for hassling her.)  Mary headed to town, and Morgan and I broke camp as Joey sat by the fire with his beer.  Morgan was in a hurry to get home for some NASCAR race.  After she left I loaded the car and left Joey sitting by the fire while I went to the Visitor's Center to pick up a couple of things.  Our original plan had been to do some kayaking, but after some of the events of the weekend, I thought better of it and decided it would be best to get Joey home.

Joey's place is not far from mine, so I went home to burn a CD of some photos I had promised Corinne before heading back to the park.  It was about 3, and I was planning to get in some hiking that we had not gotten to.  When I arrived (Ranger) Kathleen was manning the Visitor's Center with a volunteer, and Corinne was trying to deal with a group of young paddlers who had run into some issues when coming off the river from an over night trip, but was also trying to coordinate the filming of some video clips to do with the trip these paddlers had just taken.  She was concerned about the video format as the NPS camera created a file type that was not compatible with what she needed.  I assured her that she could download a converter, but was also quickly able to convince her that it would be much easier if she would use my camera which creates the file type she needed.  She was sufficiently worried about it being a burden on me, but I was pleased to help.  We got the videos recorded, then I headed back home to relax, take a shower, and make a copy of the videos.

On Corinne's invite (and so I could get the videos to her by the next-day deadline), I crashed a party the park rangers and volunteers were having for one of their ranks who was moving back home.  I had, at least, met the guest of honor a couple of times.  I knew a few of the rangers, and those that I didn't I knew by the time I headed home.  As soon as I arrived, Joe, the law enforcement ranger, recognized me (my hair) and came up with a big grin to hassle me.  I was surprise he remembered my last name, having only seen it briefly on my driver's license.  The people that I had not met before made it a point to spend time talking with me.  They are a very friendly, welcoming bunch.  When Corinne introduced me I think she said something like, "This is Laura, I'm getting her signed up as a volunteer."  After a couple of drinks, I think I consented.  But, no papers were signed, I might still be able to get out of it!  It's gotten to the point that I spend most of my free time there anyway, might as well make it official and help out.  But, we'll get all of that worked out after spring break.

Here's the video that we recorded with Corinne speaking on some of the history of Congaree.  It's pretty interesting and informative.  (Posted with permission.)

A Quick Outing Before Class

Camping was supposed to start right now.  But, the weather is crummy, and most people are interested in rolling with it.  So, I'll go out first thing in the morning and others will join me throughout the morning.

Thunderstorms were supposed to kick in this morning around 5.  When I woke at 6:30 and there was no rain, I checked  the weather.  With the forecast clear until noon and no classes until about that time, I headed down to the park to spend some time in the woods. 

I planned to hike the boardwalk, take some pictures, enjoy the weather and relax.  Right off I saw several Winter Wrens and Carolina Wrens. 

I saw a White-Breasted Nuthatch and a couple of Brown Creepers, but have no photos of those guys.  I spotted this Red-Shouldered Hawk in the tree tops:

As I walked, I thought it was interesting that the Boardwalk trail left the boardwalk.  I had not remembered that a section of the trail was an earthen path, but I wasn't really surprised, I tend to get distracted out there.  After a while, I realized that I had missed a turn, probably while following a wren, was on a different trail, and eventually I ended up at Wise Lake.

On the way back to the trail head, I passed through a small meadow of sorts and watched a few hundred Cedar Waxwings fly in and land in the surrounding trees.  Pretty cool.

Here's a sweet little Hermit Thrush.  If you look closely you can see two tiny little water droplets on his head, right above his eye.  The weather was not as clear as had been forecasted.

I spotted a Great Blue Heron and I watched him for a few minutes.

As I was about to mosey on down the trail, I sensed the tension building up in the heron and knew he was about to strike at a fish, so I watched for a little while longer.

Turns out it wasn't a fish he was after!  The Heron would pick up the snake, thrash it around a bit, drop it, then start over.  Here's a quick little video.  It's tough to take a good video at 35x zoom without a tripod, so please pardon the quality.

I never saw the Heron eat the snake, so I figured he must have given up.  But watching this last video that I took, it looks an awful lot like he may have slipped the snake down his gullet without me noticing!

I stopped in at visitors' center to chat with Corinne and John for a little while before running off to class.  I'm looking forward to spending the weekend out there. 

The Great Backyard Bird Count

As I mentioned in my post last week, yesterday was the Great Backyard Bird Count.  Numbers were low for the training workshop this time, so Joey and I sat in for moral support while we waited for the sun to get a little higher (and warmer).  Joey introduced me to the park ecologist, Terri Hogan.  Joey had worked with her when he was volunteering at a national battlefield in Tennessee a few years ago.  I think Terri will be a good contact to have, she's only been at CONG for about a year, but she no doubt keeps up with what's going on, and from what I hear she is a bit of a visionary and is great at her job.  Plus, Joey says she really knows her frogs, so I'm looking forward to hiking a "Frog Log" one night.

After an hour or so at the Visitor's Center, we headed down to the King Snake Trail to get on the creek.  It took a little while to get on the water.  We have to haul the boats about 100 meters then navigate the man-eating mud-pits boobie-trapped with cypress knees and tangling roots before we make it to the water's edge.  Okay, I guess it's  not that bad...

After a few hours on the creek we hiked down the Kingsnake trail a little ways where we were able to pick up a couple more species.  We were watching about a dozen White-Throated Sparrows when we flushed a Barred Owl that had been watching us.  He didn't seem very pleased about being disturbed and we heard him hooting away a few minutes later.  He was answered by another Barred Owl to the other side of us.  As we listened, the deep hoots of the owls was pierced by the cries of Red-Shouldered Hawks.  We watched as two hawks, calling back and forth, descended on our location, and converged on another hawk near us that we had not noticed.  It seemed that they were being pretty aggressive, but the thick canopy made it difficult to get a good view.  But the racket was amazing!  For a few minutes we were surrounded by the constant and LOUD cries of Red-Shouldered Hawks and Barred Owls.  It was awesome and pretty creepy!

For the most part, given our goal for the day, the camera was ignored in favor of the binoculars.  It's a shame.  Not only do I love taking the photos, but the GBBC runs a photo contest.  I am very tempted to go back out and try to get some shots today, but I must be a good student (for a change) and devote the day to preparing for an analysis exam I have on Tuesday.

The GBBC folks post many of the photos they recieve online, and they are amazing.  I'm tempted to submit some of the images I've captured in the park over the last few weeks, but the photos have to be taken during the count weekend.  But, who would know, right?  I would. :-(  One category in which the images tend to be less-than-stunning is the people catagory---people enjoying birds/birding.  So I've submitted this photo of Joey (posing) on the creek:

I think the composition is pretty nice, and the red maple looks pretty cool.  We'll see what comes of it, but I'm not holding my breath!

Joey was a good sport about posing for these photos.  He even pulled the Nat. Geo. Bird Guide into one of them.  Those GBBC folks eat that stuff up!

I mentioned the White-Throated Sparrows earlier.  These guys were fun to watch.  We had our first go at "pishing" with them, and it really seemed to work.  I would pish, and the birdy heads would pop up.  We still had to focus to located them, even though they were only a few feet away.  How cute is this guy peeping out from the brush? 

 

Here's a fun game of "Find the Sparrow".  It took me a long time to figure out what I was taking a picture of here:

Look closer:

And a couple more White-Throated Sparrows:

And finally, a Red-Bellied Woodpecker:

A fairly productive day, given that neither Joey nor myself are great birders...yet.  Here is what we saw (and were able to identify).

White-Throated Sparrow 10

Yellow-Rumped Warbler 2

Downy Woodpecker 1

Red-Bellied Woodpecker 4

Pileated Woodpecker (by ear) 2

Barred Owl 6

Wood Duck 2

Carolina Chickadee 6

Winter Wren 1

Dark-Eyed Junco 4

Tufted Titmouse 6

Northern Mockingbird 2

Common Grackle 7

Northern Cardinal 8

Red-Shouldered Hawk 4

Turkey Vulture 4

Ruby-Crested Kinglet 2

Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker 2

Northern Flicker 4

American Crow (by ear) 2

Birding Training

Yesterday I went to Congaree National Park to learn the art/science of birding.  Next weekend is the annual Great Backyard Bird Count.  This is a nation-wide event where anyone from beginners to birding experts keep a record of the birds they see over a period of four days and submit these numbers online.  This project, a cooperative effort of Cornell and the Audubon Society, provides scientists with data used to study the dynamics of bird populations.

The "Big Binocular" of the event is Dr. John Grego, professor of statistics at USC and president of Friends of Congaree.  Who would have thought there was an expert birder with an office two floors below mine in LeConte!  Now I know where to go when I can't ID a bird.

We spent an hour discussing birding basics: location, binoculars, etc; and several of the species common to the area and the park.  After the initial presentation, we hit the trail.  Fortunately, the rangers separated the group, so we were able to venture off without the large group of young boy scouts that were camping in the park.  It was a neat experience.  It was particularly fascinating to watch Dr. Grego bird by ear!  He identified numerous species that we never saw simply by their song---according the the National Birding Association, an identified bird call counts as a sighting.  It was a windy day, and it was a ways into the hike before we saw much, but we ended up with nearly 40 species thanks, in part, to our leader's sharp ear (Dr. Grego had predicted that we would get maybe 25).

Here are some shots that I got:

Hermit Thrush

Tufted Titmouse, one of my favorites

Winter Wren, another (new) favorite

Red-Shouldered Hawk, I've been looking for one of these!

While on the birding venture, I met a guy who just moved to Columbia about a week and a half ago from Portland.  We spent some time talking, and it sounds like he is going to be my new kayaking partner.  We spoke with the rangers about next weekend's count, and offered to cover the creek.  They don't have anyone who is going to be in that area, so they were excited to have volunteers for a "creek kayaking count crew".  So, we will be paddling and counting on Cedar Creek.  It's a little daunting, since neither Joey, nor myself are great at identifying birds, but they claim that they will be happy if we come back with just one or two species.  Anything that we get is something that no one else would be anywhere near, so it can't hurt.

Hopefully it will warm up a little before then.

A Cold Night in CONG

I have been wanting to get a group of people together for camping for a while.  We've had a hard time finding a weekend that worked for most of us, so we had not been able to get it going.  Monday I decided that there was no need to wait for the weekend!  I got a couple of people to agree to a Thursday night camping adventure in Congaree NP.  I would have to get back to campus for class by noon Friday, but no big deal.

Tuesday everyone backed out.  By Wednesday I had a couple of other people interested, and we made a go of it last night.  I picked up Toby after I got out of class and we made it in to the park about a quarter 'til five.  The campsite was great.  Pretty removed from the parking lot, but fairly well removed from the other sites as well.  I had driven down to the park that morning to pick up the camping permit.  

We got everything out to the site, pitched the tent, then headed into the forest to collect firewood.  In CONG you are not allowed to bring in outside wood due to the risk of invasive species, you must collect downed wood in the park.  In this case, I believe the invasive species are tree diseases that are released into the environment when infected wood is burned.  Finding wood was a bit of a chore, I will invest in a hatchet that will make things easier.  We had to pass on a number of decent logs that we could not break down into acceptable fire-pit size.  I picked up a decaying log and found a salamander underneath it.  I've never seen a wild salamander, and he was pretty cool.  I think it was a South Carolina Slimy Salamander, but it's hard to say.  Different online pictures of the same type of salamander can look very different.  He certainly fit the slimy secretion part of the description! I don't think Toby found it to be as interesting as I did. 

Wood collected.  We set up camp, sort of, and enjoyed the weather while Toby played the guitar.  I've decided that this should be the cover of his first solo albumn:

As the sun was starting to set, we got the fire started and I spent some time chopping up veggies for hobo sandwiches---best-thing-ever!  Another grad student, Matt, showed up around 8--he taught until 6:45--just in time for dinner.  Dan and Emily came by to hang out for a little while. 

Dan and Emily, Dan is NOT stoned.

Emily just accepted an offer to join the program next semester, so she will be moving to Columbia this summer.  I'm excited for the two of them, but for myself as well, she's a pretty cool chick.

Toby enjoying his semi-grilled squash (i.e., raw but slightly warm) and Matt's music.

Dan. Wood.  Fire.

We spent the evening enjoying the fire, the beer, and the occasional mathematical conversation.   I think my favorite was the heated Sasquatch debate!

By the time Matt and I headed into the tent where Toby seemed to be sound asleep (until I took the blanket that he had unwittingly ganked from Matt and replaced it with the extra one I was letting him borrow), it was pretty damned cold out. 

WE ALL FROZE!!!

When we headed out to the woods, Toby was under the impression that he would be fine sleeping in the clothes he was wearing.  I told him he could use my extra blanket.  Matt brought a decent blanket, but the floor of the tent was cold as ice.  I gave him my sleeping pad.  At least with the sleeping bag I had something separating me from the ground, I figured I could spare the pad. 

I don't think any of us really slept.  I woke up at some point in the wee hours of the morning and Matt was gone.  I immediately took my sleeping pad back!

When it was light out (though the moon had kept things pretty bright all night), we ventured out into the cold and were greeted by plenty of frost, and a cool-box that had iced over.  Our toes got the worst of it.  Toby and I collected some more wood and got a fire going enough to start the thaw out the tips of our toes.  I headed back to the parking lot to get a pan for boiling water for hot chocolate (and rum), and found Matt sitting in his car, engine running!  I was relieved to hear that he had just started the car and had not been funneling exhaust into the air of the national park all night. 

We made a variation of our supper hobo sandwiches for breakfast.  The raw veggies that were left over from the night before were perfectly frozen, and we met with foil wrapped success again.  We had planned to do some paddling, but instead just relaxed, never venturing far from the warm fire, until it was time to break camp and get to class.

Good trip.  Hopefully next time (a full weekend trip two weeks from today) we will be warmer, but I'm looking forward to it either way.

Lake Murray

Yesterday I went out to Lake Murray northwest of town.  Lake Murray was built in the1930's for hydro-electric generation.  I went with a girl from the department and a friend of her's whose mother has a house on the lake.  They each brought their children, ages 6 and 5 resp.

Lake Murray

The lake was nice enough, but being a major recreational destination, was very well populated.  There weren't too many people on the water, but the area of the lake that we were in was lined with houses and included a marina.

Holly (and Josie) paddling.

The marina

We were able to find a bit of the "wilderness charm" when we went back through one of the "fingers" of the lake.  The surrounding land, we think, is owned by South Carolina Gas & Electric (SCG&E).  Our path narrowed and we eventually reached a blockade that we could not (as a group) get through.

We didn't spend much time on the water, and we didn't traverse much area.  Not a bad trip, but I much prefer a low-key jaunt on a river or stream that is more isolated from the "real world".  The lake is pretty convenient, so I expect I'll be heading back out there again before too long.  At 78 square miles and 649 miles of shoreline, I'm sure I will be able to find an area of the lake to fall in love with.