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A bona-fide member of the Fifth Estate, practicing Mobile Journalism (MoJo) every chance we get...
A pair of ospreys [pandion haliaetus] nesting in Gulf State Park. If you look close, you can see one bringing a fish to feed their new chicks. Not sure what kind of fish. [Click here to see a series of photos - >].
GULF SHORES, Ala. — At least one great blue-heron seems to still make a home around the fishing of Little Lagoon and the pass on West Beach in Gulf Shores. There used to be an entire colony. I photographed a dead one here on October 11, 2010.
The brown pelican population seems to be coming back to the area. I spotted and photographed several fairly large flocks from the Flora-Bama Lounge on the Alabama-Florida line to the end of West Beach and the Fort Morgan peninsula over the past couple of days (see below).
“When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.”
- Benjamin Franklin
“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”
- Paul Newman as Luke, in Cool Hand Luke
“Keep close to Nature’s heart … and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”
- John Muir
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The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson
LITTLE RIVER CANYON – Sitting as quietly and patently as could be expected on such a quick, short trip to the mountain waterfalls around Mentone, Alabama over the weekend, I gazed until I knew the sun would soon disappear from view behind the treetops at one of the Littler River Falls overlooks.
In this preserved idyllic setting, I thought about my Cherokee ancestors who lived here for hundreds of years before the United States of America was a gleam in Ben Franklin’s eye. I thought of the men who killed the Cherokee too, and connected the dots in my mind to understand the modern descendants of those killers.
Is it possible that a grudge could linger from a human gene, and not just pass down from one generation to another through the culture?
I thought about the social and political problems in the world today, chiefly focusing on this country — and my native state.
There in that muted fall beauty, as muddled as the world has become today, my thoughts also turned to the Scotsman John Muir, an early American botanist, one of the first American naturalists and nature writers to roam from the hills of Scotland to New England, through Appalachia to the Gulf of Mexico and ultimately California by way of South America.
Click on the image for a larger view…
Muir never saw this exact spot, and for that he missed one. But he passed through these mountains on the Georgia side as surely as DeSoto. (See map below).
Click on the image for a larger view…
Little River Falls is located in Little River Canyon, a National Preserve managed by the National Park Service. It is located just southwest of DeSoto State Park in the Appalachian Mountains of North Alabama.
Like other National Park Service properties, such as the Great Smoky Mountains, more people visit in autumn than any other time of the year. This year, however, was a weak year for color due to low rainfall levels in the summer and fall. But it still made for a beautiful early November outing into nature and out of the city’s suburbs.
Click on the image for a larger view…
The air is crisp and cold at DeSoto State Park and the autumn color is evident in the hardwoods, yet muted due to the dry summer and fall.
The Alabama Chapter of the Sierra Club is about to wrap up the final meeting of the group’s annual retreat.
More photos below:
Read the rest of this entry »
Fall color is starting to pop out on the Tallapoosa River in Horseshoe Bend National Park
Click on the images for a larger view…
by Glynn Wilson
HORSESHOE BEND – If you squint your eyes and listen close, you can almost hear the battle cries here where United States General Andrew Jackson slaughtered the last of the Creek Warriors in 1814. They say the river here ran red with the blood of 800 Creek natives, otherwise known as the Red Stick Indians, who valiantly stood up for the last time to the white men of European descent who invaded this land and committed genocide on a mass scale against the indigenous population.
According to the official history, in the spring of 1814, Jackson and an Army of 3,300 U.S. soldiers attacked 1,000 Upper Creek warriors on the Tallapoosa River. More than 800 Upper Creeks, a.k.a Red Sticks, died defending their homeland.
Never before or since in the history of this country have so many American Indians lost their lives in a single battle.
The 2,040-acre Horseshoe Bend National Park preserves the site of the battle.
Fall color is starting to pop out on the Tallapoosa River in Horseshoe Bend National Park
While watching for the grosbeaks and other migrants to pass through Middle Alabamaland on Saturday, I managed to catch a rare series on the Eastern bluebirds [sialia sialis] which inhabit this territory pretty much year ’round. These are shy, even skittish birds to try to photograph in the wild. For more photos of the family which nests around here, check out this photo slide show.
A trio of rose-breasted grosbeaks [pheucticus ludovicianus] at the Dogwood feeder during the fall migration, 2010. I’ve been following this population for the past five years from this spot. The population looks healthy this year, in spite of the BP Gulf oil disaster. This is the first time I’ve been able to get video footage of them.
A couple of male rose-breasted grosbeaks [pheucticus ludovicianus] taking a break on the bird bath with their cousin the cardinal during the fall bird migration through Middle Alabamaland. I’ve been following this population for the past five years from this spot. The population looks healthy this year, in spite of the BP Gulf oil disaster.
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