Shell Mound Con Nino's

Jonathon in the bow and Junior at the helm.
I was proud of these two generation electron kids. They powered that canoe into a brisk breeze and crossed the river in a straight line to the lee of an Island.


I was really proud that they fished so hard without whining or resorting to Star Wars or LOTR sword fighting with the fishing poles.

The boys spotted the first of many horseshoe crabs mating on the oyster bars. This small male was desperately clinging to a larger female when I interrupted him for a pic. He wasn't actually mating, just clinging to her for that moment when she crawls up on to the beach as she has been doing for about 200,000,000 years to lay her clutch at the high tide mark.

See that sweeeeeeetly curving shell bar beneath and beyond the kayak? Such a place just screams redfish or trout, so I parked the kayak and took a quiet stroll casting to either side of the bar.

Sure enough, this pretty seatrout cooperated. I brought it to shore for a quick release and continued casting, but that was to be the only fish of the day.

At the wedding last week, my Uncle Richard showed me a gator trout over 9 pounds that he caught. It could have eaten this one for lunch!

Aunt Shelba, send me that picture and I will post it if he wants!

Oystercatchers are one of my favorite shorebirds ... how 'bout you? These aren't as spiffly dressed as I was expecting ... maybe they are juvies.

Chime in there birders.

I NEVER head out without multiple battery backups when I go photographin'. In these days of megapixels, your batteries are your film.

I usually have a charged set in the camera and two backup sets in the camera bag.

So you can imagine how shocked I was to reload the Sony and find that the backup pair I grabbed were dead.

Arrgghh... a few days ago I took a spare charged pair out of my pockets and a used pair (AA Sony rechargeables) at the same time. I remember thinking at that moment, "Did I just mix these up? ... Nahhhh."

Well, I did.

Not only did I bring a depleted pair of AA's along on this adventure, but I left the other pair at home in a pair of shorts I had just dropped in the closet.

So ... back to the reloading of the dead batteries. After discovering that the new pair was completely depleted, I dumped them and reloaded the recently expired ones that were in the camera originally.

After all, it hadn't actually shut down, it was just flashing the dead battery warning prior to the change.

I could probably squeeze out at least one or two shots if I kept the camera off between shots.

That paid off. Every bird shot on this post was taken with that pair of very depleted batteries, with the "dead battery" symbol flashing the whole time.

Eventually, as I drifted right up to an oyster bar loaded with skimmers, the batteries shut down and my Sony went quiet.

Of course the skimmers let the kayak approach closer than ever before at that moment.

And of course, they finally flew up all around me swirling magnificently, before settling right back down next to me, as if to say, "Dang, boy, wouldn't that have made a great little video clip?"

Oh well ...

At least I got a few stills off before my energy crisis.

I think this was my last shot of the day.

Who is the unique individual in that shot?

Knot? Not?