On the Road--Down South: Natchez, Mississippi to Houston via Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge

Another long day of driving, but I decided I wanted to be in Houston tonight so that I don't have to drive tomorrow before my flight home. I got into the Southeast Texas area around 3:30 and spent the late afternoon at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. It was difficult to find, but once there worth the trouble. It is mostly a vast expanse of brushy areas studded with small trees. Here and there are marshy areas. Part of the Refuge borders the Gulf. The result is a good variety of habitats for birds. As usual, there were Mockingbirds everywhere, but the first bird I saw on this, my last day of this long birding trip, was a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher--a nice bookend: The first bird I saw on my first full day of the tip was a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. I saw three or four at Anahuac.

Orchard Orioles were plentiful as well (left), as were Mourning Doves. I was a bit surprised to see Willets and very surprised and pleased to find Common Nighthawks both flying and resting on many of the fenceposts. The Nighthawk has always been one of my favorite birds--even before I started birding seriously. I used to love to watch them hunting at dusk in my Dayton, Ohio neighborhood. It was nostalgic to see the familiar white patches on the wings.

Other birds I saw included: Red-winged Blackbird, Bobwhite (heard), Boat-tailed Grackle (or Great-tailed Grackle--I still can't reliably distinguish these), Eastern Meadowlark, Eastern Kingbird, Turkey Vulture, Black Vulture, Killdeer, Barn Swallow, Cliff Swallow, Starling, Laughing Gull, White Ibis (about 30), Glossy Ibis (about 8), Dickcissel, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Common Gallinule, Black-necked Stilt, an unidentified duck, Black-bellied Plover, Green Heron, Little Blue Heron, and Fulvous Whistling Duck (life bird No. 23 for the trip). A sparrow I have yet to identify (I took marginal photos) could add another life bird. I have quite a few pictures to look through.

If I can rouse myself early enough tomorrow, I may go to Jesse Jones County Park, which, according to my iPhone, is about 12 minutes away from my hotel. So, I may get in a little more birding before departure, but I may sleep in. Looking back, four birding locations stand out in my mind: Lacassine Pool and Lake Martin near Lafayette, Louisiana; the Savannah NWR; Edisto Beach State Park; and Anahuac NWR, but Edisto Beach, where I saw the Painted Bunting was very special.

On the Road--Down South: Selma to Natchez by way of Crystal Springs and Vicksburg (June 18, 2013)

I left Selma, Alabama early today, heading west toward Vicksburg. Vicksburg was one of the pivotal battles of the Civil War, and I've always wanted to see the place. En route, I realized I was near Crystal Springs, a name that has resonances for any blues fan. Robert Johnson was born in Hazelhurst, the neighboring town to the south, but, more importantly in my mind, it was in Crystal Springs that Robert Nighthawk learned to play guitar and perfected his art, playing mostly local gigs with his brother Percy and cousin Houston Stackhouse. No one seems to remember Nighthawk here, but I wanted to say I'd been to the place. I visited the Robert Johnson Blues Museum, which is a mildly interesting hodgepodge of material, much of it unrelated to Johnson. It's run by one of Johnson's granddaughters. I had lunch at a place that claimed to serve "world famous soul food." It was nothing special. After lunch, I took a walk along some of the very pretty wooded trails at Chattauqua Park, just outside of town. I found a couple of Summer Tanagers in the trees, led to them by their calls, which I had remembered from the day I first saw these birds, at Edisto Beach State Park a couple of days ago. An historical marker notes that it was in this park that the first PTA (parent teacher association) was formed--an unexpected tidbit.

The Vicksburg battle site is a bit overwhelming. It would easily take an entire day to see it in detail. I drove most of the 18-mile road that winds through the Union and Confederate siege positions and visited the USS Cairo Museum--the raised wreckage of a Union ironclad that went down in the Yazoo River, just north of its present position. Later, I drove along the Mississippi to look at other positions--to see where confederate guns were placed to control the channel, although the Mississippi suddenly changed course rather dramatically in 1874, and the river's course moved about a mile away from where it had been during the Civil War. After the change, the Army Corps of Engineers dug a channel along the city's original waterfront to facilitate navigation, so water again flows in some of the areas it would have during the battle. The numerous monuments at the site--some dedicated to the men of whole states, some to regiments, some to individual soldiers who died during the siege (many with bronze bas relief portraits) are a testament to the emotional impact of what happened here. As at Andersonville, the way the site is embellished with these attempts to remember, to memorialize, to preserve is as impressive or more so than the place itself. According to one plaque I read, Vicksburg is among the best documented battlefields in the world. Soldiers from both sides of the conflict came back after the war to relocate their positions and identify them with markers that give remarkably detailed accounts of action that took place nearby, including lists of wounded and dead at each spot. Later, driving around Vicksburg, I happened upon a plaque about blues legend Willie Dixon, who was born in Vicksburg.

From Vicksburg, I drove south toward Natchez. I was aiming to get as far as Baton Rouge, but again my plans were thwarted by a violent thunderstorm. I ended up ducking into a restaurant and finding a hotel room in the town. Today I aim to get out early to try to see the bird sanctuaries in southern Louisiana that I missed on the way out. Back to Houston tomorrow, then home.

On the Road--Down South: Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge to Selma Alabama (June 17, 2013)

I arrived near the Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge in the early afternoon, in a deluge of rain. I was afraid I'd have to miss the place altogether, simply continuing to drive west, but the sky began to clear not long after I found the place and I ended up spending an enjoyable couple of hours along the "wildlife drive" that winds through much of the refuge. Perhaps because the rain had just ended, there was a lot of activity in the trees and low brushy areas I passed through. Almost immediately I saw Red-headed Woodpeckers--a bird I haven't seen since I rode my bike from Dayton, Ohio to Oxford, Ohio to visit a long-distance girlfriend, probably around 1974. I noticed an Eastern Towhee. I saw a first-year Orchard Oriole, and a Yellow-breasted Chat. American Goldfinches everywhere. Indigo Buntings singing. The usual Mockingbirds and Mourning Doves. Bobwhites calling nearby, but invisible in the dense brush. A white Ibis flew over. Yellowthroats singing on the tops of tall weeds. I even got two new birds. I saw what looked like a Mourning Dove flush, but it had no white in its short tail and the wings were the color of Cinnamon--Common Ground Dove, life bird No. 21 for the trip. Not long afterward, I spotted a pair of sparrows that I was able to get a good look at and photograph. They turned out to be Field Sparrows (below), life bird No. 22 for the trip.

I ended up in Selma, Alabama, having skirted Montgomery to the south. I followed the trail of the 1965 civil rights marches to protest white resistance to black voter registration drives in the area, crossing the famous Edmund Pettus Bridge. I was hard pressed to find a hotel. Selma is a much smaller place than I imagined. I was reduced to eating fast food for dinner. This morning, I head further west, aiming to stay in the Vicksburg area tonight before turning south along the Mississippi and then heading for the Gulf Coast again.

On the Road--Down South: Plains, Georgia (June 17, 2013)

After leaving the Andersonville Prison site, I found myself passing through Plains, Georgia, home of former President Jimmy Carter. It's a tiny town. I stopped briefly to have a look around, visiting a little antique mall. On a table near the entrance I noticed a small black cat curled up, napping in an enameled bowl. The woman working in the mall told me the cat naps there every day. She said that President Carter had been in town the day before. Carter's original campaign headquarters, in a train depot, is preserved. There appears to be a large Carter historical center on the edge of town, but I moved on west and south, heading for the Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge.

On the Road--Down South: Andersonville Prison (June 17, 2013)

Yesterday, June 17, I headed directly for Andersonville, GA, the site of Camp Sumter during the Civil War, better known as Andersonville Prison. It's a place I've always wanted to see because an ancestor, according to family tradition, was captured at the Battle of Gettysburg and eventually ended up at Andersonville, where he died.  A docent at the site said that many who are said to have died there actually died en route to prisons further south as Union forces, outliers of Sherman's forces as they headed for the sea, approached from Atlanta. Surely the place itself has no memory, but it is somber nevertheless. Camp Sumter today is just a large field, but parts of the stockade around the perimeter of the confinement area have been reconstructed, based on excavated posthole evidence, and earthworks outside the palisade, though eroded, remain, along with the earthworks of a small star-shaped fort at the south end of the camp. The stockade was built by slaves from timber that was cleared on the site. Each trunk was cut to 22 feet. The poles were placed side by side in a ditch five feet deep that was then filled in, forming a solid wall of wood above ground. The perimeter was about 3/4 of a mile long including a late expansion, the whole enclosing about 16 acres. There were only two gates. The photo above shows the top of the stockade in the distance from the perspective of someone standing outside a V-shaped earthwork at a corner of the confinement area. Cannons were positioned in these earthworks, some pointing outward to guard against Union raiders, some pointed inward toward the prison, loaded with scattershot.

What is striking is that the "prison" was nothing more than this expanse of bare ground enclosed by the stockade. The prisoners were left to find their own shelter and even their own water. They dug wells in the field, which slopes gently toward a creek. The ground is studded with concrete markers about ten inches in diameter, each topped with a round metal plate etched with a number and the words "Historic Well." The Confederates thought it an excellent place for a prison because of the access to water. The idea was to put latrines and the like at the low end of the enclosure so that the water would wash sewage away from the living and cooking areas, but the stockade blocked the flow of ground water, creating a boggy marsh that quickly festered with waste. Most who died at the prison died of dysentery spread by the contaminated water. At peak, about 100 men died every day.

Because the site is mostly an empty field, those who came back after the war were moved to create monuments to those who died (about 13,000 of the 45,000-50,000 prisoners that were interred at Camp Sumter perished there).  There are large stone monuments erected by the various northern states that lost men at Andersonville. Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, and Rhode Island were among those I saw. Large monuments stud the cemetery, about a quarter of a mile from the prison site. After the war ended, Clara Barton and a former prisoner, Dorance Atwater, who had made a duplicate list of the burials and smuggled it out of the camp, came back to identify graves before the identities of the men were lost. Burials were initially marked with wooden markers, but these were replaced with the headstones now on the site. Barton and Atwater did a good job. It's remarkable that only about 400 of the thousands of burials are marked "unknown soldier."

On the Road--Down South: West Across Georgia (June 16, 2013)

Spent most of the day driving today. I stopped at the Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge on my way back west from the Savannah area. My experience there was similar to others I've had--a lot of bird song, but very few birds to look at. They remain mostly hidden in the dense vegetation. I did see a Chipping Sparrow or two. A couple of young rabbits checked me out before hopping away nervously. I tried to stop at the Harriet Tubman Museum in Macon, but it was closed. I made a brief stop at Madison County Recreation Park, also along the way. There I saw a Muscovy Duck and a beautiful male Orchard Oriole. Earlier in the day I saw more Blue-grey Gnatcatchers. I ended up in Columbus, Georgia, the only town vaguely along my route that seemed likely to have hotels. Tomorrow, I plan to backtrack a little to visit Andersonville Prison National Monument. From there I plan to do more birding, this time in Mississippi, before heading for Vicksburg to see the bluffs there that Grant conquered.

On the Road--Down South: A Day of Birding

Yesterday, June 15, was a day devoted entirely to birding, frustrating at first, but ultimately rewarding. In the morning I headed for Edisto Beach State Park, on the coast between Savannah and Charleston. Along the way I stopped at Donnelly Wildlife Management Area, a remote expanse of woods with a lonely road through it. I drove the road for miles, car windows down, listening and looking for birds. Eastern Wood Pewees, I recognized. I got a fleeting glimpse of a pair of sparrows, but they moved off too quickly to identify. They were most likely Chipping Sparrows. The road ended at what looked like a ranger station with a decaying barn and gas pump and a small cornfield. On the wires there I saw Eastern Bluebirds, Eastern Kingbirds, and doves. On the drive back, I could hear woodpeckers and flycatchers, but most of the sounds were unfamiliar except for a Pileated Woodpecker in the distance and Cardinals singing everywhere. In the end, I saw very little, and was mostly left wondering what birds were making all the noise.

Back on the main highway, heading for Edisto Beach again, I spotted an unfamiliar-looking hawk. I hastily pulled over and found myself in a patch of trees around a little-visited cemetery. The flowers on the graves were plastic, faded, and grey with dust. Slipping through the trees to get a view of the sky above, I saw that the hawk was nothing unusual--a Red-tailed Hawk--and my attention was quickly called away by unfamiliar singing in the trees. I spotted a warbler-sized bird (possibly a warbler) with a brilliant yellow throat, a collar of patchy grey, and a pale yellow-white breast and belly. It seemed greyish above with two thin white wing bars, but I never really got a good view. Its vocalization was distinctive, though--a fairly flat trill that reminded me of an Orange-crowned Warbler (but without that bird's characteristic change in pitch during the trill), finished off each time with a single chirpy note. I heard the same bird on the trails around Edisto Beach, so it's probably common. I don't know what it was, but I was able to record the song. I'm hoping to figure it out later*. Before I left I also saw a Carolina Wren in the trees.


At Edisto Beach, the usual birds were at the ocean--Laughing Gulls, Brown Pelicans flying in lazy rows, and a few Royal Terns out over the water. For lunch near the beach I tried a shrimp Po' Boy. The shrimp was good, but I wasn't terribly impressed by the sodden iceberg lettuce and white roll it came in. After lunch, I drove to a small visitor center and campground registration post where I parked and started on a long loop through woods with an extension back out to the coast. I spent the rest of my day walking trails winding through the woods and here and there muddy expanses of sea grass nearer the ocean. These marshy areas are strangely empty of birds except for Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets here and there, but the woods were active. I mostly saw Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmice, but got another good look at a Red-bellied Woodpecker. There was a Blue-grey Gnatcatcher in an isolated stand of trees close to the coast--a bird I hadn't realized lived in South Carolina. On the walk back through the dense woods I saw a flash of red that wasn't a Cardinal. It was a male Summer Tanager. A second one appeared and two females as well, for life bird No. 19 on the trip. Finally, when close to returning to the car, a small bird caught my eye. I put my binoculars on it and was thrilled to see it was a plump male Painted Bunting--one of the birds I most hoped to see while in the South (life bird No. 20 for the trip). It obligingly flew to a nearer, well-lit perch and allowed me to photograph it at my leisure before it flew away. The whole day was worth the tanagers and the bunting (top photo). Along the way, I passed a funny little post office, the name of the town painted on by hand.

*I was subsequently able to identify my mystery bird as a Northern Parula (life bird no. 18 for the trip).

On the Road--Down South: Savannah's Forsyth Park, Colonial Cemetery, and Another Visit to the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge

I got up early yesterday morning to go birding at Savannah's largest park, Forsyth Park. It was somewhat disappointing, but not entirely unfruitful. Most of the birds were House Sparrows, Robins, and Starlings (not to mention the ubiquitous Mockingbirds), but there was also a contingent of Brown Thrashers--one of those birds I may have seen as a child but certainly haven't seen since I was very young. It was fun to watch them hopping around the lawns tossing aside magnolia leaves looking for food. A very pretty, rufous bird. They seem to be common here.

Afterward, I decided to make one last visit to the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge, this time driving the "Wildlife Tour." Most of the people on the route seemed to be looking for alligators, but there were birds around. Although I saw nothing new, I got to see more Anhingas, Moorhens, Purple Gallinules, Cardinals, Blue Jays, a lustily singing Indigo Bunting, a pair of Cattle Egrets, and, overhead, Great Egrets, Mississippi Kites, and even a couple of Glossy Ibises.

Later in the day, I went to see the Colonial Cemetery again, as it was considerably cooler today than it has been in the last few days. Clouds threatening rain that never developed were welcome. The cemetery was the second built in Savannah. It appears to have been used actively between around 1750 and 1850. Many of the graves are from 1820, a year marked by an epidemic of yellow fewer that killed more than 700 citizens of Savannah. The cemetery is now a city park. This was the original resting place of Major General Nanthanial Greene, one of Washington's most important generals (later moved to Johnson Square). Other notables of the Revolutionary War period and others include Joseph, James, and John Habersham; Joseph Clay; Samuel Elbert, Colonel John S. Macintosh, General Lachlan Macintosh, Edward Greene Malbone, a miniaturist; and Captain Denis L. Cottineau de Kerloguen.

The highlight of lunch was a fat crab cake on a layer of grits with a tomato bisque sauce at a place called Soho South Café. The service left a little to be desired, but the food was good. I had an Ace pear cider with my lunch. I finished off the meal with a slice of Georgia pecan pie. I've always loved pecan pie. I assumed it would be good here in Georgia, and it was--note that the filling is mostly pecans, not gelatinous goo. A great way to wrap things up.

On the Road--Down South: Savannah Spire (June 13, 2013)

Yesterday evening, while walking around Savannah--a very walkable town--looking for a good place to have dinner, I was impressed by the white spire of a church with a gilded weather vane on top. I happened to walk along an ally as I was trying to find a good vantage point and saw the building through a pane of broken windows and thought it a better view than any unobstructed view I was likely to find.

On the Road--Down South: Air-conditioned Savannah (June 13, 2013)

Temperatures yesterday were over 100 degrees F again in Savannah. I slept late to refresh myself, had a good breakfast and then went out to visit one of Savannah's cemeteries, the Colonial Cemetery, but again found the heat and humidity so oppressive I changed course and headed in the direction of some indoor, air-conditioned entertainment. I went to the Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum. I was a bit skeptical at first about the $8.50 admission charge, but, having now seen the museum, I can say it was well worth it.

The museum houses a truly impressive collection of ship models illustrating the maritime history of Savannah. They are meticulously detailed and many have cutaway sections that allow you to see inside the vessels. Besides the ship models, the collection includes shipbuilding and sailmaking tools, navigation tools, art depicting maritime vessels, scrimshaw, objects illustrating the lives of sailors, and even a few actual figureheads.

A small figurehead in the shape of a horse's head was striking, I thought (left). I also liked a French Porcelain  "brothel cat." According to the museum notes, these were placed in the windows of brothels that catered to ship's crews. The eyes were removable. Green eyes were inserted to indicate the establishment was open for business. Red eyes meant the place was full or that the police were in the area. A cat with its back turned indicated a brothel was closed. Is this the origin of the expression "cathouse"?* Well worth the time to visit--the museum, that is. Highly recommended.

As it was still hot when I left the Maritime Museum, I next headed for the Jepson Center for the Arts, one of a group of three museums in the city collectively known as the Telfair Museums. The Jepson Center houses contemporary art. The building is interesting, especially the spacious entry area lit with natural light. The highlight of the visit was a show of paper works from the museum's collections called "Innovative Work from the Telfair Galleries." Unfortunately, this is one of those places that allows no photography, so I can't illustrate what I saw, but I particularly liked a piece called "Studio" by Conrad Marca-Relli, one called "The River Boat Guide" by Jerome Meadows, "Strata #389" by Susan Schwalb, and "Flock" by Kiki Smith. Elsewhere in the galleries, "Low Country Construct No. 1" by Elizabeth Cain was of interest as well.

[*A subsequent search suggests that the use of the cats was perhaps peculiar to Savannah. According to the OED, "cat" was a common term for a prostitute possibly as early as 1401 but certainly so by the 17th century. Therefore "cathouse" would have sounded the way "whorehouse" does to us today.]

On the Road--Down South: Savannah National Wildlife Refuge (continued) and Charleston

I went back to the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge yesterday, over the Talmage Memorial Bridge again, this time hoping to see new birds while walking one of the forested trails. The day before, I had walked out in the sun--not a tree in sight--and felt unwell afterward. Yesterday's forested trail was shady and somewhat cooler--not to mention shorter. There was a fair amount of bird song, but, frustratingly, I saw almost nothing. Not knowing the songs here that well, I didn't always know what I was hearing, either. I did recognize Cardinals and Towhees in the distance, but there wasn't a lot going on.

Later in the day, I decided to drive up to Charleston. I mainly wanted to see Fort Sumter, but I arrived about ten minutes too late to take the last ferry over for the day. I was annoyed. I can't imagine why the ferries stop running at 4:00PM in the middle of June, and you'd think there would be private boats willing to take tourists the short distance to the island, which looks about two miles out in the bay, but I could find no way to get there. From what I read at the ferry pier, however, the fort looks nothing like it did during the Civil War. First, it was reduced to rubble during the long siege that it suffered, and at some time well after the Civil War a large, modern artillery battery was built in the middle of what was once the parade ground. It was enough just to see the position of the fort and to see the place the first shots of the Civil War were fired from, a place called Point Johnson on the shore. I watched the water for a while. Royal Terns and Laughing Gulls were fishing or stealing bait (the gulls) from fisherman on the piers. I looked at Waterfront Park and later Battery Park, which has a nice pineapple-shaped fountain in it. Lunch on the way into Charleston was a truly delicious pair of grilled shrimp flour-tortilla tacos at Yo Bo Cantina Fresca.


I spent the rest of the day just walking around Charleston, which has a lot of interesting architecture. The oldest houses seem to be mostly brick and from around the Revolutionary War period. You could spend days looking up at the cornices of the bigger buildings or peering into courtyards lush with ferns, or looking into shop windows. Much of the old downtown in Charleston (and Savannah as well) still has gas lamps burning. I had a quick dinner and then made the drive back to Savannah, about two hours. This morning I feel tired and somehow don't want to go out into the heat at all, but I'll think of something interesting to do.

On the Road--Down South: Savannah National Wildlife Refuge (June 11, 2013)

On June 11, I got up fairly early and headed to the Savannah National Wildlife Reserve, a short drive North from Savannah, just across the South Carolina border. The road takes you across the Savannah River on the Talmage Memorial Bridge, an attractive cable-stayed bridge completed in 1990 that has become a symbol of the city, although it's a bit removed from the center of things. I walked a weedy, trail along an embankment for a couple miles, but turned back early because of the oppressive heat and humidity. I later learned that it had been over 105 degrees. The trail is completely exposed--not a single tree to shelter under. The embankments are the remnants of an old rice plantation that operated here. Despite the heat and the aborted walk, I had the pleasure of seeing a Red-bellied Woodpecker shortly after I started walking (life bird No. 12 for the trip). A little further along I saw female Orchard Oriole, and a pair of Indigo Buntings. Yellowthroats were singing in the small trees in the swampy areas below the embankment. Anhingas (life bird No. 13 for the trip), Great Egrets, and Little Blue herons flying overhead kept me looking up and, before long, a couple of Wood Storks flew by (life bird No. 14 for the trip)--very large birds with broad white wings and black primaries, much like a White Pelican in coloration.

Before long I started seeing unfamiliar raptor-like birds that turned out to be Mississippi Kites (life bird No. 15). Other birds included Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and Eastern Kingbirds. On the way back, walking slowly to keep from getting overheated, I noticed a group of about 30 birds circling in the distance. When I looked at them with binoculars I was surprised to find that they were mostly kites, with Swallow-tail Kites among them (life bird No. 16). The Swallow-tail Kites have a strange combination of fierceness of aspect and elegance that makes them fascinating to watch. In California, our kites, White-tailed Kites, are occasionally seen in small family groups during breeding season, but they are otherwise mostly solitary. I wonder if these Southern kites normally fly in groups like this? In the end, the walk turned out to be quite productive, if uncomfortable.


After recuperating with a cold beer and a lunch of wild Georgia shrimp and avocado quesadillas at the Kayak Kafé back in Savannah, I decided to drive out to Tybee Island, another spot supposed to be good for birds. Along the way, I stopped at Fort Pulaski, a low, brick Civil War fort that was worth a quick wander through. The island has powdery sand beaches and a lot of restaurants with a look that suggests their focus is scooping up tourist dollars rather than serving good food. I was going to stay and have dinner on the island, but couldn't find a respectable-looking restaurant or even an inviting outdoor table. Before leaving I walked down to the beach and watched a group of people playing bocce ball and kept an eye out for birds. It was mostly Laughing Gulls and Brown Pelicans, but there were also terns flying further out, occasionally hovering and then diving headfirst into the water for fish. They turned out to be Royal Terns (life bird No. 17 for the trip). I ended up going back to Garibaldi's again for a late dinner and a glass of wine after a much-needed nap.

On the Road--Down South: Albany, Georgia to Savannah, Georgia

I woke up early yesterday (June 10) to put Albany, Georgia behind me, heading for the East Coast. Not far out of town, I noticed widely spaced rows of tall trees, the sort of trees for which the word "stately" might have been coined--tall, elegant trees. I guessed they might be pecan trees, and so they were, my conjecture confirmed by the many roadside signs for pecans and the logos of pecan growers on a number of buildings. I took the back roads, mostly Georgia 300, through Cordele, then 280 through Abbeville, McRae, and Alamo, before heading north on 221 as far as Soperton to join I-16 to Savannah. Saw Black Vultures, Mockingbirds and Cardinals along the road and a few stranger sights, including a rather buxom replica of the Statue of Liberty in one town and giant cement roosters and pigs in front of an IGA market in a place I can't name. "Piglet" is the name of a chain of convenience stores here.

Savannah is a rather pretty town. It has many small squares. These all have tall trees, benches, and, inevitably, a monument of some sort in the middle. A statue of Georgia founder Oglethorpe stands in Oglethorpe Square. There are many old houses and buildings of brick or masonry with character that give the place a great deal of visual interest. I spent most of the day wandering the streets. Down by the river are some interesting remnants of cobblestone paving and canal work. The old red stone Cotton Exchange is impressive. There's a winged lion in front made of the same stone. Is there some connection with Venice? According to the plaque out front, Savannah in its heyday was the largest cotton shipping port on the US East Coast and the second-largest in the world (the plaque neglects to say second to what other city, but it was probably New Orleans), handling two million bales of cotton a year. Dinner at a place called Garibaldi's, which was not bad at all--caprese salad and duck with a nice glass of Vermentino. Today off to the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge to look for birds. The weather appears to have cleared.

On the Road--Down South: Rained Out (June 9, 2013)

I left Gulfport, Mississippi this morning (June 9), heading south and east, aiming to visit the bird sanctuaries at and near Dauphin Island on the Gulf Coast, but it soon began to rain as I started out and it was coming down in sheets by the time I got to the coast. I sat in the car a while and watched Laughing Gulls (life bird No. 10 for the trip) and Brown Pelicans flying along the shore. I had seen Laughing Gulls earlier, in a Gulfport Walmart parking lot (where I stopped to buy sunscreen), but got a much better look at the birds by the sea. When the car radio suddenly stopped and the emergency broadcast system croaked on to warn of severe thunderstorms and gale force winds on the way, I retraced my route then headed east and north in the hope of finding clear skies and something of interest to do. I ended up driving most of the day in the pouring rain on I-10, heading toward Pensacola, Florida. A large billboard said "Pray." Another admonished "Know Jesus." Most of the way I was able to find an NPR station on the radio. I listened to the same episode of "The Prairie Home Companion" that I'd heard the day before. Along one stretch of highway, the NPR station and a religious broadcast began to come in virtually simultaneously. Terry Gross on "Fresh Air" was interviewing a TV writer talking about writing gay characters. The religious voice was talking about the inspiration of god's love. Sometimes a sentence begun by one was finished by the other. Eventually, god won out and I pushed the scan button to find solace in the voice of NPR again. The sunscreen could have waited.

I ended up in Albany, Georgia, the only town that seemed likely to have hotel rooms between where I found myself with sunset coming on and the coast (this time, the East Coast). I passed through Dothan and Blakely. In Blakely the road signs, if followed strictly, will put you in perpetual orbit around the town square. I had to flag down a car to ask which road to take to get to Albany. Along the way, near Arlington, I spotted a group of vultures in the pines along the road. I had seen a Turkey Vulture not long before, but these birds lacked the familiar red head of the Turkey Vulture. I turned back for a better look and confirmed that they were Black Vultures (life bird No. 11 for the trip). My lens, cool from the air conditioning in the car, fogged over as soon as I stepped out into the hot, sodden air, but I got a few shots, before heading back quickly to the car to avoid mosquitoes. So far the bugs haven't been as bad as I feared they might be, but the trip has just begun. The people have been friendly. Tomorrow (June 10) I head for Savannah.

On the Road--Down South: New Birds (June 8-9, 2013)

On my first day of real birding in the South, June 8, I headed south and east from Lake Charles by the back roads--Highways 90, 101, and 14--to Lacassine National Wildlife Refuge, which turned out to be very poorly marked. Eventually I found it by turning down an unlikely looking road marked for "Lacassine Pool." Although the scant signage said I was in the refuge area, I never found the Refuge proper, but it didn't matter. The pool (an open expanse of water covered in yellow lotusus) was more than sufficiently interesting. I walked along the roads some and took the self-guided "wildlife tour" by car that was offered. On the drive down from Lake Charles, I spotted a scissor-tailed bird on a power line. I stopped, and drove back only to see it fly away into a field. Luckily it landed not far off, allowing me a good look. Scissor-tailed Flycatcher: Life bird No. 2 on this trip. In Lake Charles, while waiting for a book store to open so I could buy a field guide (I stupidly forgot to pack one) I saw a pair of White-winged Doves, also a new bird for me. Mockingbirds everywhere. At first they confused me. They are much browner than the Mockingbirds I'm used to in California. Also saw a Blue Jay and a Cardinal, both for the first time in a long time. Heard a Killdeer in the distance. Cattle Egrets here and there.

At Lacassine Pool I saw many Grackles. I believe both Great-tailed Grackles and Boat-tailed Grackles, but I'm a little confused about the grackles. Purple Gallinules and Common Gallinules were all over the watered areas, many with chicks, walking on the big lotus leaves. Barn Swallows, Red-winged Blackbirds (with the yellow bar that our California birds lack), Mourning Doves (a darker, richer brown than ours), Great Egrets, a few Coots, and many Eastern Kingbirds. Along the road I found a pair of Kingbirds with three newly fledged young. Later I got to hear a very vocal Common Yellowthroat singing out in the open. Saw a Brown-headed Cowbird and a Great Blue Heron. With the exception of the Eastern Kingbird, these are all birds I've seen before. If I've seen an Eastern Kingbird, it was long ago. Likewise the Glossy Ibises flying over, so I'm not sure whether to count these as new life birds until I can check my records at home. I therefore count White Ibis as life bird No. 3 on the trip. Pretty birds with pinkish heads and bills. The very tips of the primaries are black.

Heading further east, I had planned to visit Avery Island, the home of Tabasco Sauce, but arrived in Lafayette too late to make the detour and then make any headway toward the coast. I had wanted to see the salt dome there and to do some birding as well. I stopped in at the Lafayette Tourist Information Center, where the very helpful people suggested I visit Lake Martin instead, which turned out to be a wonderful idea. The main bird walk was closed for alligator nesting season, but I walked the boardwalks that were open. Carolina Wren, Carolina Chickadee, and Prothonotary Warbler in the cypresses gave me life birds No. 4, 5, and 6 for the trip. A female cardinal was a bonus. Watched Tufted Titmice tussling in the trees. I was about to leave when I talked briefly to a docent who told me there was a rookery further up the road with Little Blue Herons nesting (checking the map later, this appears to be called Rookery Rd.).

As I pulled up to the rookery a few minutes later--a stand of low trees studded with white and blue-black birds--I came upon a rather docile pair of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks (life bird No. 7 for the trip; pictured below). The Little Blue Herons made it eight life birds for the day. Among the herons were Great Egrets and a few Roseate Spoonbills. I've seen spoonbills in Europe, but, these are a different species--pink, as the name suggests. Roseate Spoonbill for life bird No. 9. A very satisfying day, although the many white herons at the rookery remain a puzzle to me, with their pale bluish legs, they are not any of the herons or egrets I recognize. Could they all have been juvenile Little Blues (which are white, according to the field guide)? Drove east then as far as Gulfport, Mississippi, where I spent the night. Saw some fairly immense thunderstorms along the way, one with lightning flashes and a persistent quarter rainbow looking like a handle lodged in the side of a black thunderhead. After a shower, I had a mediocre meal at Half-shell Oyster House. Today, June 9, planning to head to coastal birding areas nearby, if weather permits.

On the Road--Down South: Authentically in the South (June 8, 2013)

I feel authentically in the South now: I've seen alligators and bayous. I got to thinking about the word "bayou" and realized that, although I had a clear mental picture of a bayou, I couldn't actually say what a bayou is. So, I asked someone. Apparently, a bayou is a very, very slow river--not a stagnant body of water--although apparently at times they stop flowing and they even flow backwards depending on tidal influences.

It turns out that alligators are rather shy beasts. Still, I don't plan to swim in the bayous or to stand too close to water's edge. The alligators are quite hard to see. They slip away underwater at the approach of a person and they seem to see us before we see them. Most of the alligator activity I've witnessed has been nothing more than a slight motion followed by a circle of ripples in muddy, still water and then by a few small bubbles in the center of the disturbance. It took me a while to understand what I was seeing. The landscape along the major highways is fairly dull, but on the back roads where I've been birding, the bald cypress-pierced bayous and vast expanses of water lilies and yellow lotuses in more open country are quite pretty.

On the Road--Down South: Houston, Lake Charles (June 7-8, 2013)

Air travel has the desired yet disorienting power to suddenly drop you into another world. It feels a bit surreal to find myself in Lake Charles, Louisiana this morning. I arrived last night in Houston and drove a couple hours east. This morning I head south towards the coast--the Gulf Coast, that is--to Lacassine National Wildlife Refuge to see what I can see in this area before heading further east. I'm hoping to find shorebirds that will be new to me. On the drive last night I saw Grackle-like birds that I can't quite place, but they seemed common. I expect to see them again--and I expect to be in Mississippi or even Alabama tonight.

Found Art: Saw Blade (June 4, 2013)

I don't know why this rusty saw blade was screwed to the wall of a building I recently walked by in Petaluma, but there it was. It reminded me of the bow of a Venetian gondola. Found art.

For more found art, see my blog Serendipitous Art.

Rain: Late May Rain

Surprisingly, it clouded over the day before yesterday and the wind blew cool. Overnight we had some rain, which is unusual here this late in the year. It wasn't much--only 0.3 inches--but it was enough to refresh things a little. That brings our 2012-2013 rain year total to 24.85 inches, still well below normal, but not disastrous. Average annual rainfall in Santa Rosa is a little over 36 inches.

Books I'm Reading: Pictures at a Revolution

Mark Harris's thesis in Pictures at a Revolution (Penguin, 2008) is that the 1967 Oscars can be taken as a turning point in the history of Hollywood. By examining in detail the creative genesis of the five movies nominated for Best Picture that year--Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, and Doctor Dolittle--Harris looks at the transition from increasingly less successful big budget musicals, dramas, and romantic fluff born of the studio system toward a riskier, more independent, more personal style of film-making relying on the creative genius of individuals of a new generation. Interesting as a snapshot of Hollywood at the time and also for its back-stage look at how films are conceived, funded, made, and marketed. The book manages at the same time to paint portraits of some of the main players in the stories it tells, particularly Warren Beatty, Sidney Poitier, Dustin Hoffman, and Rex Harrison. Well written, highly readable. Successful as film history, social history, and biography all at once. Recommended.

Music I'm Listening To: San Francisco Symphony with Arabella Steinbacher and Alban Gerhardt, Marek Janowski Conducting

I attended the May 17 (Friday) performance of the San Francisco Symphony led by guest conductor Marek Janowski. On the program were Schumann's Manfred Overture, the Brahms Double Concerto in A Minor (for violin and cello), and Schumann's Symphony No. 3 ("The Rhenish").

This is the third time I've heard Steinbacher live in San Francisco, having heard her perform Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 with Herbert Blomstedt wielding the baton, in March 2011, and playing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with Charles Dutoit conducting, in March 2012. When I first heard her, I was impressed, but felt the Mozart didn't show off her talents or the characteristics of her violin well. Her recording of the two Bartok violin concertos with Marek Janowski conducting the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (Pentatone Classics, PTC 5186 350) is what really got me excited about her. It's become among my favorite recordings of those pieces.

The Brahms Double Concerto is a meaty piece of music with a lot going on. It's almost  tiring to watch, but Steinbacher and cellist Alban Gerhardt were electrifying. They played as if they've been playing together for years--although that's not the case (at the CD signing after the concert, I asked them: Gerhardt told me they had played together only once before this series of concerts, and that that was 14 years ago). It didn't show. The back and forth between the violin and the cello seemed perfectly timed. It would have been hard to ask for more. Their instruments seemed particularly nicely matched as well. I've remarked on the gritty, throaty sound of Steinbacher's violin when I've written about her before. Gerhardt's cello has a similar earthy grittiness to it. The pairing worked wonderfully. Gerhardt plays a cello made by Matteo Goffriller (1659-1742), a Venetian luthier active between 1685 and 1735. Goffriller is noted especially for his cellos. I certainly liked the sound of this one and Gerhardt played it with breathtaking precision but also with enormous enthusiasm and verve. Both Steinbacher and Gerhardt appeared to be enjoying themselves immensely as they played. Conductor Janowski succeeded in drawing the best out of everyone. Steinbacher wore a particularly beautiful dress in burnt sienna and gold, colors that seemed calculated to complement the colors of her violin and Gerhardt's cello.

Photo of Arabella Steinbacher by Robert Vano, courtesy of www.arabella-steinbacher.com. Photo of Alban Gerhadt courtesy of www. albangerhardt.com. 

Birds I'm Watching: Rarities at Bodega Bay (May 23, 2013)

Yesterday I rushed out to Bodega to see two rare birds there. An immature Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster) appeared at Campbell Cove on May 22. It's the first time the species has been seen in Sonoma County. Normally Brown Boobies live in Mexico. Their presence is rare anywhere in California but particularly so this far north. I had to wait around for a couple of hours, but eventually the bird appeared. Fishing, apparently fruitlessly, the bird made numerous dives but never seemed to come up with anything.

Also a rare visitor to the area is a Franklin's Gull (Larus pipixcan) that's been hanging out on the mud flats a little beyond the entrance to Doran Beach at Bodega Bay. It's an adult bird in full breeding plumage. We rarely see any of the so-called "hooded gulls" (gulls with completely black or dark brown heads in breeding plumage) here. Bonaparte's Gull (Chroicocephalus philadelphia), a hooded gull, is a common winter visitor in Sonoma County, but we see that bird normally in winter plumage.

For more about bird watching in Sonoma County, see my website Sonoma County Bird Watching Spots

Books I'm Reading: Mary Cantwell's Manhattan Memoir (May 21, 2013)

Who was Mary Cantwell--Mary Lee Cantwell? Although she lived a life more important than I ever will, she was no Amelia Earhart, no Rachel Carson, no Lousie Nevelson--in big-picture terms, she was a fairly ordinary journalist, she was a mother. Yet, in writing about her life, using her extraordinary memory, her extraordinary ability to turn a phrase, her extraordinary willingness to be honest (although here and there, you get the feeling she's holding back just a little) she has enshrined a modestly important life in three absorbing, vivid memoirs and elevated it to something close to art.

I read Manhattan Memoir, a 2000 Penguin edition that brings together three books originally written and published separately: American Girl (Random House, 1992), Manhattan, When I Was Young (Houghton Mifflin, 1995), and Speaking with Strangers (Houghton Mifflin, 1998). The three books were written during Cantwell's later days, as a columnist for The New York Times. Cantwell died in 2007.

American Girl, the first of these, is a kind of love letter to Bristol, Rhode Island, the town Cantwell grew up in, and to her childhood there. It takes the reader from her earliest days through her high school graduation. She is never specific about dates (in this segment or the two later ones), but Cantwell, having been born in 1930, mostly describes the late 1930s and early 1940s in this volume. Nostalgia for Bristol, for her family--most especially for her father--and for a lost era are at the heart of American Girl, which, in loving detail, describes young Mary's school and family life and her awakening to the politics of power, to class distinctions, to attitudes to femininity, to her own sexuality, and to possibilities beyond her bounded world. It is a progression of epiphanies that point the way to new understandings of self and place. At the end of American Girl, we see a Mary Lee that is defined by and deeply emotionally attached to the place and the people that have nurtured her and, simultaneously, a Mary Lee that is ready to be "launched" into the world, ready to escape from small town constraints. The two states of mind are contradictory. Much of what Cantwell has written--in this volume and the next two--seems to chronicle her ongoing but ultimately hopeless attempts to reconcile this kind of inner contradiction.

Manhattan, When I Was Young, in many ways a loving portrait of New York City, is the strongest of the three books, I feel, but my view may be biased. My mother, like Cantwell, was born in 1930 and lived in New York during the same period. I myself was born in Manhattan. Many of Cantwell's images are familiar from my childhood and from stories I've heard of my mother's life in Manhattan during the period. In some instances, the overlaps are uncanny. Two stores Cantwell mentions by name as places she frequented are Cheese of All Nations and The Pottery Barn (in its early days as what today would be called an outlet store, specializing in inexpensive ceramic ware, mostly seconds). As a child, I remember visiting both stores with my brother and parents. I remember Cheese of All Nations as a large barn-like room (was there straw strewn on the floor?) with capacious cases full of cheese, cheese hanging overhead, and strings of national flags along the walls. We joked about Limburger being the smelliest cheese on Earth and delighted in sticking our noses into the cases to smell it and grimace. We bought our Finnish Arabia dinnerware at The Pottery Barn. I remember the stacks of bowls and dishes and coffee cups, mostly in white or yellow or deep green. I remember my mother checking each piece, looking for the best ones among the seconds. Much of the background here reminds me of my own childhood. It's of interest to me for the same reason that Mad Men (which takes place in New York in the same period) interests me. In it I can see my own past.

Those associations aside, Cantwell's account in Manhattan, When I Was Young is a fascinating intertwining of three main threads--the course of her career (first at Mademoiselle, later at Vogue), of her marriage and its slow death, and of the growth of her two daughters (with literary agent Robert Lescher--referred to throughout only as "B." Her daughters Katharine and Margaret, too, are given code names--"SnowWhite" and "Rose Red"). It is both painful and fascinating to watch the marriage decay, in part because of an odd paralysis in Cantwell, often but not always relating to sexual relations. She is impressively capable of careful self-observation and analysis but exasperatingly often she is incapable of doing what she recognizes she wants to do or knows she should do. She talks of seeing her own emotions only in retrospect and she makes the disjunct palpable. At times you get the sense that Cantwell finds a morbid satisfaction in watching her own helplessness--and that she finds herself repulsive at those times while nevertheless being incapable of changing. She displays an odd mix of passive dependence--always seeking approval from her husband even as he drifts away from her--and determined independence, which frequently takes the form of accepting unpopular foreign assignments at work. She takes every opportunity her work affords to travel, to go somewhere--anywhere. At one point, you can feel her approaching mental illness, but she pulls back, she copes--which, I suppose, is all any of us can do. Travel seems to provide her only real escape.

Speaking With Strangers picks up where the previous volume leaves off. It covers the period following her divorce, when she is raising her children alone in New York. Cantwell's career is blossoming but she suffers from a persistent inner sadness. Her work assignments take her to fairly remote and unglamorous places, but she accepts them happily (often seeking out those that seem least appealing), apparently in the hope of finding some sort of solace. Repeatedly she ends up far away, lonely, sometimes frightened, and deeply depressed, and praying for the strength to get home, to get back to her children, which she guiltily vows never to leave again--until she does, on her next assignment. She finds freedom in these odd places, among strangers, yet she is never untethered from New York City (which comes to define her as much as her home town has) or from the experiences of her early years, her fondly remembered childhood in Bristol. For a period she finds something resembling love in the arms of one she cryptically refers to as "the balding man." We are told only that he is a married, Southern writer of note (in reality, poet James Dickey). Ultimately he abandons her for another woman after his wife dies, but she has been using him for her own purposes, too. His affection is something of a trophy for her; it was for both of them an arrangement of convenience. Cantwell, we see, had never really let go of her past sufficiently to allow herself the luxury of fully believing she might have had a future with Dickey.

To the end, Cantwell is guarded yet deeply revealing, hopeful yet depressed, acutely aware of the great blessings she has enjoyed in her life while exposing the unhealed wounds she has struggled with. She is a contradiction. She gives us a study in coping, a study in being human. If you set aside the fact that Cantwell's problems are petty compared with the undeserved, heartbreaking cruelties that a good slice of humanity daily faces, if you accept that hers was just one particular kind of life and of a particular era in small town New England and in New York City (a bountiful life by world standards), these three volumes are a moving look inside that life. Like all people, Cantwell was a bounded infinity. It's rare to be allowed such an intimate look inside the boundaries of such an infinity. Recommended.