Blue Goose ~ Day 247

January 29, 2015 ~ Walterboro, SC to Francis Marion National Forest, SC (Buck Hall campground)

Refuge headquarters at ACE Ernest F. Hollings NWR - SC

Three rivers, the Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto (ACE), run through the Low Country in South Carolina before flowing into the Atlantic. The Ernest F. Hollings ACE NWR protects 12,000 acres of this 350,000 acre basin. The land was originally used to grow rice and had many owners before being purchased by The Nature Conservancy and then the USFWS. One of only three surviving antebellum homes in this extensive basin is now the refuge headquarters and open to the public. The grounds and house are slightly gothic. There were scattered dead insects in a small room with limited information pamphlets, and while a gentleman upstairs did answer a question or two, there was not the welcoming air of most refuges. The house still had dusty Christmas ornaments here and there.

Two men were going back and forth in loud machines, dragging the final stretch of gravel road leading to the offices/home, perhaps ultimately improving it, but maybe just putting in time with their machines.

Yellow-rumped Warbler - ACE Ernest F. Hollings NWR - SC

I walked under the moss-draped and immense live oaks to the impoundments through grasses where I  tried hard to identify a nervous little sparrow with a raised crest who would pop up for three seconds and then disappear again. It was sunny and quiet. I imagined living in such a home 200 years ago through the seasons, next to a swamp, close to marshes...the insects, heat, humidity, storms, animals...the daily work of maintaining a plantation, both fields and homes, the slave culture, the families who raised children here, the lives of the children....

I am invariably addressed as either "ma'am" or "dear" whenever I talk with anyone...in wonderful Southern accents which I sometimes need a few seconds to translate. I think on what has happened in 50 years between the races and how on the surface there seems to be acknowledgement and acceptance but I know the issues and situations are complex. I have not seen many East Indians, Asians or Hispanics in the Low Country.

Red Wolf - Cape Romain NWR - SC

I skirted Charleston and Savannah as I drove north to Cape Romain NWR where I stopped and learned about the endangered Red Wolf. There are only 300 of these beautiful wolves living and 200 of them are in captivity / recovery programs at 40 sites around the country; 100 live in the wild on the Alligator River NWR in North Carolina. Cape Romain currently has five wolves. A very enthusiastic gentleman (the resident "wolf man") talked to a small group of visitors just outside the wolf enclosures for 30 minutes, explaining wolves and the recovery program. He was justifiably proud that a pair of his wolves had bred and produced a litter of six last spring. Two of these died; two were removed to Alligator River and two remain with their mother here at Cape Romain.

Unfortunately, Red Wolves are now breeding with coyotes, and this is one of the biggest concerns for preserving the genetic purity of the species.

I drove to the boat landing for Bulls Island, also part of the Cape Roman refuge, a donation by a wealthy sportsman from New York, Gayer Dominick, in 1936. It is now a true refuge. A current focus is the loggerhead sea turtle, an estimated 1000 of which nest annually on Cape Island, the northernmost barrier island of this refuge.

I camped at the nearby Buck Hall campground in the Francis Marion National Forest. It was a small campground (only 14 plug-in sites plus 5 tent sites), and right on the Intracoastal Waterway. I paid only $10. The camp hosts invited me to share their campfire so I spent a pleasant hour talking with them and a friend of theirs about the life of camp hosts and retirement and traveling, while watching the sunset through layers of rosy clouds in the west.

Intracoastal Waterway - Buck Hall campground - SC