Dauphin Island, Alabama

Our Internet service has been rather sketchy recently. But right now it seems to be working so I had better write while I can.

We’re leaving Dauphin Island, Alabama today starting our trip north. The birds have been somewhat disappointing, but that’s how migration goes sometimes. On the other hand the company and food has been spectacular. Here’s a little of shat we saw and did recently.

Susan and I walked to the bakery the past few days. It’s a nice walk and we could go directly to Shell Mound afterwords where there are usually a lot of birds. These are the Dauphin Island Dolphins.

The bottlebrush trees are coming into full bloom right now, which is usually good for birds. All we’ve had are a few Yellow-rumped Warblers, mockingbirds and thrashers.

Brown Thrasher (left) and Eastern Mockingbird (right) are closely related genetically and in song. Thrashers are just arriving on the island in numbers. Mockingbirds are ubiquitous, there must be a pair every 50-75 yards. There’s a lot of singing and interesting interactions at territorial boundries.

Currently, unlike past years flowers are doing well. We’ve seen more wildflowers this years than in the recent past. Crow poison (left) is abundant and blue-eyed grasses are quite common. The name Crow poison is from the Cherokee myth that the flowers were leathal for crows to eat. Another name is false garlic.

More later as we start north…