I don’t want to give the wrong impression of our ‘safaris in the swamps’. This is not the 1920’s and we are not old time explorers.
Cars, dirt roads, public access, and a little walking the boonies.
Dirt roads and wildlife management areas will make up most of the hot summer months.
There are thousands of acres of marsh lands and swamps that can be reached by ‘roads’. The car takes a beating, and at the end there is still walking, but it takes miles off the trip. This is tropical heat so any help is great.
Above is a wooden trunk, or water gate, separating marshes. This allows for controlling water levels between tidal, fresh water, and even old rice fields. This is the same design used here in the 1800’s. BTW: if you enlarge the image above there is a Little Blue Heron sitting in the trunk.
This is also where the ‘real’ Alligators live. Not the smaller city cousins. Recently an albino Alligator was spotted near here. The other larger ones took him as a threat and it wasn’t pretty. A reminder to shoot just a little further out here.
As the breeding season ends many of the birds will make their way back to these marshes for food. Above are Snowy Egret’s flying low and grabbing small fish.
There are days we go out and find very little. I’m not thrilled that day, but there is still an amazing number of things to see out there.
That’s a tremendous “backyard” in which to wander. Also impressive that 1800s technology is effective and still used today
That part of my backyard has been labeled ‘the last great place’ by several conservation groups and the label stuck 🙂
The original design and concept of those water trunks actually was first built in the 1700’s with the first rice plantations here. It was started in Africa and when enslaved people were brought up from Barbados they built the first style trunks. Plantations here were first started by order of the King Of England (1600’s) with land grants to Barbados plantation owners.
How fortunate you are!
Very interesting, thanks!