Monday, August 10, 2015

August 9, 2015 Francis Biedler Forest "Brake for Snakes...and Turtles"

I can't tell you how to get there. You will have to ask.  I don't know if GPS will do it.  It is really out in the boondocks, the sticks, the outback, out in the country. Traveling East on I-26, take exit 177 after going under I-95, about 7 miles and go into the town of Harleyville.  From there, you are on your own. But the address is 336 Sanctuary Rd., Harleyville, South Carolina 29448.  Believe me, it is worth the trip.

The Biedler Forest is an Audubon Center. Down the dirt road, you will find a well equipped station with guides, gift shop, rest rooms, outdoor picnic tables and after a $10.00 adult fee, the entrance to the 1.75 mile boardwalk winding through the last and tallest stand of Cypress-Tupulo Swamp in the world. Yes, I said, in the world.  It is the summer (spring and fall) home to the protonotary warbler, a little yellow bird who makes its home in the hollows of the thousands of Cypress knees rising up from the black muddy soil of the swamp.
When I last visited here, it was winter and the yellow bird had gone down to South America.

I returned in hopes of meeting this yellow warbler, the mascot of the center.  And I did meet him.
But first we traveled along the boardwalk until a blue eyed, grey haired New Zealand Birder, armed with binoculars, approached and pointed out not one, but two 5 foot long brown water snakes, their brown, yellow striped underbellies bulging with recent dinners.

We came to a high observatory stand built over a lake brimming with turtles swimming and sunning on logs.
It was there that I saw the yellow birds flitting around in the tops of the trees.  The New Zealander was there and a young landscaper from Columbia who was also a birder.  They pointed out the wood stork flying far up in the blue heavens above us, the great blue heron perched on a log down the lake, a little blue heron flying up from the bank.

Going back along the boardwalk, we meet a young woman and man  using binoculars to watch small birds high in the trees, attempting identification.  She tells me to get the "merlin" app of Cornell Lab Ornithology which will help me identify birds on a smart phone. You enter size, location, at most three colors, where the bird is sighted (such as soaring, in bushes, on a fence etc.) and then you will be offered a series of possible photos.  You may even be able to hear the recording of the bird's voice.  It is almost like having a teacher or birder guide with you.

This area is known as Four Holes Swamp. The Biedler Forest Center offers guided canoe trips in May and  monthly night walks.

Notice the sign upon entering Sanctuary Rd:  "Brake for Snakes....and Turtles" and the admonition in the Center: "May the Forest Be With You."

And so it will.
( If we take care of it.)

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