March 2, 2017
It rained overnight and was still raining when we woke in the morning but soon faded to a bit of drizzle. It also cooled quite a bit and was in the low 50s, cool enough to fire up our improved electric heat. In Old Speedy, we carried a little cube-shaped electric heater that dated back to 1990. We used it whenever we were plugged in and it was cold inside of the van (which was every morning last winter at Buenos Aires NWR). New Speedy has a heating element built into the air conditioner. Just turn a switch and warm air blows out heating the interior, such luxury! It is just the thing for taking off the morning chill.
After a late-ish breakfast, we figured that the rain had stopped enough for a morning birdwalk. We bundled up a bit. Ellen had a jacket and I pulled out a flannel shirt for the first time since arriving in Florida. It started out a bit damp and breezy. We walked down to the dock and boat ramp to see if anything was on the water and then went out of the park into a waterfront neighborhood, Shellmore, right next door along the waterway. There was gate at the boundary and one could walk around it, so we did.
We went that way because we could see several Purple Martin complexes on the docks of the
homes along the water. We could see birds on them, but couldn't tell what they were and wanted a closer look. We got that and found that they were mainly Red-winged Blackbirds.
We saw mostly blackbirds and Grackles on our walk through Shellmore which is a small, private neighborhood of very expensive homes.
We took the road up towards US-17 and found a couple of pockets of little birds, mostly Carolina Chickadees and Pine Warblers. We walked along the highway back to the entrance to Buck Hall and saw nothing. We ran into a few more pockets of songbirds on the road back to the campground as the day cleared.
After returning to Speedy, we decided to go out to lunch. There is a little restaurant on US-17 at McClellanville, called the McClellanville Diner. We've eaten there before and they had good seafood then. We hoped for oysters but didn't get them. At $18.99 for lunch, it seemed a bit too pricey for us frugal New Englanders. Maybe when we get further up the road. Instead we had flaky flounder sandwiches which were very good.
We had originally planned to stay only two nights at Buck Hall, as that was all we could get reservations for. When we checked back on-line, the weekend reservation for our site had been cancelled. We decided to stay two more nights here, going up to Santee Coastal Reserve tomorrow.
We were able to book tomorrow night with the campground host as it was listed as walk-in only. Saturday was reservable, but we couldn't take it through the campground host, only via Recreation.gov. This is a bit of a rip-off since the booking fee would be about the same price as the site fee for one night. After talking with the host here, we decided to chance it as it will become walk-in by tomorrow morning if not booked today. If it doesn't work out, there is always overnighting at Santee or in the Buck Hall overflow area. Got all that?
In the afternoon we took a hike along the Palmetto Trail. This is the South Carolina cross-state walking trail that starts here at Buck Hall and ends in the mountains at the far western corner of the state. It was supposed to be a hike, not a bird walk, so Ellen only took her new compact binoculars. We did four miles out to the marshes south of the campground and back. While not birding, we only saw three species of woodpeckers (including a Red-bellied Woodpecker in its nest hole) and the usual complement of chickadees, pine and yellow-rumped warblers as we hiked along.
It has cooled further and is now 50° at 9 PM. It might be a cool trip to Santee tomorrow.
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