Birds o' St. Cat's

6/18/09 Saint Catherine's Island
Bird day today on St. Cat's! Morning was spent on land looking mostly at pond breeding birds. First stop was Greenseed pond where we saw woodstorks, little blue herons, tricolor herons, black headed night herons, great egrets, and snowy egrets, plus the occasional boat tailed grakle and red winged blackbird. Even saw a flock of white ibises briefly flying over head. All the birds but the ibises were nesting and we saw tons of juvenille tricolors and tricolor eggs. After this we poped (as in travelled in the pope mobile, our sawed off 60's model chevy bus-convertable, will include picture soon) to Wamassee pond were mostly the same set of birds were observed. We swung by several bird habitats on the way back, but nothing much notable except for seeing the painted bunting at king new ground dock. This thing was amazing! Possibly the most awesome north american bird I've ever seen. After taking an after-lunch snooze on the porch of Bradford Hall (our eating establishment), I shipped out with the group on the sewanee boat to grass island, which I believe is a slight misnomer as as it must go completely underwater at spring tide. Anyway, there we saw a couple of american oystercatchers, tons of black skimmers, a couple of royal terns, some ringbilled and laughing gulls, a brief glimpse of a stoneturner, and some stray shorebirds whose names I'm not remembering. Another of the most awesome sights of the day, however, was in the early evening when we went looking for rails. First of all, we did see a rail (clapping rail, to be specific), but what really rocked was an alagator fight. A smallish (1.5-2 meter) alligator was hanging around seaside dock when a masive old guy, had to be more than 2.5m, came swimming down the tidal creek. The small guy hurried (relatively speaking, these are ectotherms) to the bank and removed himself from the creek. This wasn't enough for the big guy, though. He (or she) slowely floated down until his head was almost on top of the tail which the smaller one had left dangling in the water. The big guy waits, doesn't move. Were watching in suspense, when almost to fast for the eye to catch the big one shoots out of the water, snapping at (and possibly into, we couldn't really tell at the speed it was happening) the little guy, who flings himself (or herself) into the creek and submerges, not to be seen by us again. The big one sits triumphantly on the bank, maw wide open letting all around know he won and not to mess with him or enter his territory again, then lightly slides back into the creek, leaving us amazed.
We start inverts tomorrow, I should have lots more to write soon.