A Photo Essay From the Alabama Gulf Coast

Photos by Glynn Wilson

[Click on the images for a larger view]

Brown pelicans in flight around Gaillard Island in Mobile Bay, home to the largest nesting population in Alabama. We wanted to check on the island to see if there was any evidence of effects from BP’s oil spill, and document the beauty of the place before any major impacts make it inshore.

A brown pelican racing for Galliard Island in Mobile Bay at the end of the day with two gas rigs in view.

Looking south toward the Gulf of Mexico from the western tip of the Fort Morgan peninsula on June 4, the day and hour when oil globlets began washing ashore here from BP’s oil slick, some of it mixed in with a mess of seaweed washing in with the tide.

Fisherman Richard Andrews filets what may be the last flounder he is able to catch off Fort Morgan for a long while as the oil just made its way onto the peninsula this past week.

If you look closely you can see oil sheen as well as black and reddish-brown tarry globs of oil in the surf. The light crude in it’s most liquid form has emulsified and evaporated, leaving behind the thickest and most toxic form on the beach. If it comes into contact with the eggs of wildlife such as loggerhead sea turtles, pelicans or herons, it is deadly. There have been reports of second degree burns from contact by people. Do not touch this stuff without protective gear. Swimming in the water with it is foolhardy, and eating fish caught in waters with it should be prohibited.

From Dauphin Island to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, Alabama to Pensacola, Florida, the tarry globs of oil mixed with dispersant chemicals could be found on the beaches just about everywhere over the weekend. More is expected as the Deepwater Horizon gusher continues to pour perhaps as much as 100,000 gallons of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico.

Cleanup crews rake and shovel oil globs mixed with seaweed into garbage bags on the beach in Gulf Shores by the Gulf State Park fishing pier.

Oil globs from the size of quarters to the size of soccer balls could be found along the coast just about anywhere you look.

It would be a shame and a tragedy if the oil were to wash up into Mobile Bay and poison the eggs of these threatened white pelicans and the brown pelicans, just recently removed from the Endangered Species List.

A flock of great egrets, also known as the great white heron, are also nesting on Gaillard Island.

An adult brown pelican‘s wing span can reach as much as six and a half feet across.

Workers in Gulf Shores, Alabama, close off the Little Lagoon Pass on West Beach with a mountain of sand.

A great blue heron watches over Little Lagoon Pass, and must be wondering why the fish are no longer making their way through his home waters.

Have you ever seen a great blue heron dance like Elvis? Check out that leg action.