Flora and Fauna

Day 15…Wednesday May 28, Lake Drummond Campground, Dismal Swamp

Flora and Fauna

The intent was to document what we saw and smelled and heard, but it has been an exercise in digression, wallowing in self indulgence, a sickening swill.

All our itty bitty aches and pains, no matter how great they may seem are nothing at all in the midst of a wild and hostile real world…no quarter asked of given by the wild creatures.

Somewhere out there in the NC waters we spent a day sliding over a million, maybe in Pamlico Sound …long-tentacled red and white stingers that we avoided – but that sort of thing has been everywhere and this blog has overlooked the obvious.

Ospreys aren’t here in the swamp, but they have been plentiful everywhere else, welcome company on remote and inhabited coast…crab pots were all over the place and posed some challenges to steer among while trying to hold a fine line with/against the wind and seas…so there must be a fair number of them. We haven’t seen much for geese, except most notably families living/pooping on well-manicured lawns…except the family in the morning quiet in the Alligator River Ditch. I may have seen a rangy red wolf for a moment along the Pamlico Sound – nothing wild sticks around long, and we’re don’t see the real creatures long enough to snap a picture.

Last night we listened to some weird sounds here in the remote Dismal Swamp…and it ain’t dismal – hardly any bugs, fresh water/air…a great break. Bobcats were conversing and yowling in the night, and massive tree toppled over, and today I took the tram over into Lake Drummond and watched a few great blue herons fly off and got lost on the vast expanse among the trees in the wildlife refuge. An otter and I shared curiosity as it tooled along among the cypress trees and dived for edibles, rearing up to check me out and then disappearing, peering around a tree and diving down to travel further...we ran into each other a couple of times. I got a picture of it, but it does no justice. The cypress trees ringing the lake are worth the trip, more lush than I’ve ever seen. Goldfinches are plentiful around here, and the USACOE dam attendant’s poodle discovered a fresh turtle egg nest – it is safe so far.

The pelicans were many further south and there were only a few in Albermarle Sound. Fish splash everywhere up to 1’ long leaping from some bigger fish. Not too many kingfishers overall.

So there is wildlife, and we are lucky to catch fleeting glances before the critters get the heck away from up. The ospreys with their nests let us know their disdain when we’re far off and get more vocal as we pass by, trying to not disturb them…and sometimes we hear the young speak up from within the nests – their voices haven’t gotten high and piercing like the old folks – they kinda croak baby talk.

Back to self–indulgence…supper was fire-cooked oatmeal and a can of mixed vegetables after a day with a can of tuna with mustard and crumbled tortillas and crackers and we’re getting to the bottom of our second 5 liter box of wine – we take the bladder out of the box and protect/pack it in a cloth bag because it takes less room, and a taste is great in the evening. Vitamins, ibuproferin and Reishi Mushroom capsules help us maintain perspective. A Tylenol PM is sometimes good in the sleeping bag. The water in the swamp in delicious and warm, and we saw a couple of water moccasins yesterday swimming across the canal. I feel very clean with the fresh water.

The USACOE guy, Allen, comes to work at 8:30 and is supposed to leave at 4, but it was a slow day and he left the place to us. He is a National Weather Service Cooperative Weather Observer and has a temperature box and rain gage that measured 0.62” rain last night into this morning…we slept through some of it, and today it probably didn’t hit 70, and we’re wearing long underwear etc to rest and strengthen because we take off tomorrow morning – we’ll go to another campground just before the lock that’ll take us back down into saltier water at Deep Creek into the Elizabeth River into Portsmouth and Norfolk, into the James River across the 3 mi Hampton Roads (where the Monitor and Merrimack slugged it out…and then Chesapeake Bay, where we plan to move up the west side with some shelter from west winds and especially big waves…it has to go better than NC, but we wouldn’t trade that time…well, I trade some to get the GPS and VHF radio charger after they succumbed to too many soakings.

I asked V if we were having fun and she said, “Well, we’re part of nature, and nature is real…we’re like being kids again.” I guess that’s fun.