Very Little Wildlife

The last few trips I have taken to the North Carolina mountains have been disappointing as far as spotting wildlife is concerned. Over the past year I have seen almost nothing of note in my wandering through the wild and rural areas of our high country. I know it's just the luck of the draw, but it had been disappointing to be ready to see wildlife but encountering very little.

On the last full day we had at Van Hook, our camping companions Adam, Kelley, and their little boy Logan wanted to go fishing. So we went over to Cliffside Lake adjacent to the campground so that Adam and Logan could toss out the lures a few times. It was later in the afternoon, and the almost constant rain of four days had slackened enough to be able to allow them to go fishing.

While everyone else stayed to fish or watch someone fish, I opted to hike around the lake and try to spot some wildlife. And I did manage to see just a few things, which follow as photos and captions:

This is the dam which forms the lake. I haven't looked it up, but I would not be surprised to learn that it was a project of the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Looking across the lake. The dam and spillway are on the left.

I took this one while sitting on a picnic table on the far side of the lake from Carole, Adam, Kelley, and Logan. There was another family at this spot and they had me use their camera to take a family photograph of them.

Not sure what species this is. It was on the ground hunting for food.

This is a Pileated woodpecker. They are really big birds and their wings make a lot of noise when they take flight. Unfortunately, the ones I do encounter are really skittish and flee and move a lot to avoid humans. I couldn't quite focus my telephoto lens on this one before it vanished into the trees.

And this was one of two baby snapping turtles we saw at the edge of the lake. Well, that was some wildlife, but not what I was hoping to encounter. We did hear a couple of raccoons ramble through the campsite deep in the night (they woke Carole up). They didn't cause any mischief with us, but they did somehow steal two sticks of butter from the guy camping adjacent to us.

Very Little Wildlife

One big disappointment for me on this trip was a lack of wildlife. I had always heard great stories about the variety of bird life on the Outer Banks and was looking forward to spotting some rare species. Also, since we were going to be in the Alligator River Wildlife Refuge for one day I was thinking we would see some black bears (they're thick there) and maybe even a Red wolf (their numbers are growing in the Refuge).

But we saw very little in the way of wild creatures. Oh, we spotted the usual suspects: White-tailed deer, sliders, pelicans, osprey, red-winged blackbirds, terns, sandpipers, and the like. But nothing to get us excited. I've been told we were there at a good time to spot good numbers and ranges of animals...but the luck was not with us, in that respect.

Apparently it was egg-laying season for snapping turtles. To that end, we did manage to rescue two snapping turtles from very dangerous journeys across the highway. In both cases I pulled off the road and ran back to gather them up and transport them to a safer location. One of the turtles was rather small (I picked her up by the tail and placed her in a sand bucket), but the second one was pretty darned large and I had to corral her into a box and place her in the back of the truck. But we managed to take them to good, safe spots away from the road where they could find both shelter and nesting places.

The small snapping turtle in the sand bucket.

A final portrait before I showed her the pond.

As soon as she saw the water...she was off!

Splash!

"HA! HA! You can't catch me now, human!"

"I'm out o' here!"

"The point of no return!"

And then, all but invisible.

Carole cheers me on from the boardwalk above the pond.