Barely Skating By: You Better (Os)Prey That I Stop Trying to Force This Pun (Day 3, SC 2014)

On our third day in South Carolina, we played some games in the morning, but by about noon everyone else was exhausted and had to take a nap. I was not tired, so with a small-footed, friendly companion in my ear, I set out on a quest to find some more excitement! Compared to the events of the day before, I didn’t find much (which is good considering that the day before I had walked into a banana spider web, and almost been bitten by a lone star tick). I did find several creatures, though, including this small green anole (Anolis carolinensis), pictured below.

I also got my first good look at the Mississippi kite (Ictinia mississippiensis).  We don’t have many kites in Colorado, with the Mississippi kite only occasionally in the state, and the swallow-tailed kite (Elanoides forficatus) a vagrant, so I don’t know as much about them as I do about some other raptor groups.  Apparently, the Mississippi kite is primarily an insectivore, and only sometimes will kill prey such as frogs and snakes.

Now this next identification I am not terribly certain about. Here in North America, we actually have two types of crow. Most people are familiar with the American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos), which lives all over the United States. However, we have a second type of crow, the fishing crow (Corvus ossifragus), native to the eastern United States. The fishing crow looks very similar to the American crow, and the best way to tell the two crows apart is to listen to their respective calls. The American crow has the well know “caw, caw” sound, while the fishing crow has a much more nasally cry. Some websites do list other, physical characteristics to distinguish between the two, but for the most part, it seems like auditory verification is the best way to go. I also seem to remember thinking to myself that this crow, as well as five or six others nearby, were making noises that I didn’t think sounded like a normal crow.

After my fun-filled walk, I arrived back at the Beckley’s house, where people were starting to wake up. Jim asked if we wanted to go out gator hunting (I’d like to point out that when I talk about gator hunting I mean trying to find them to take pictures of them and get really excited and embarrass myself in front of the locals by making it abundantly obvious that I am, indeed, a tourist), and so my parents, sister, Chris, Jim and I all prepared to head out. While we were waiting in the driveway for everyone to get ready, I noticed one of those eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) running around. They really shouldn’t be this exciting for me, but for some reason even they seem exotic. Just like our fox squirrels (Sciurus niger), the gray squirrel has very flexible ankles so that they can climb down trees headfirst, like you can see here.

We also saw a male northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) flitting around in the trees. This bird is sexually dimorphic, with the females mostly pale brown, with tinges of red.

As is always the case, we were never far from a banana spider web. What was interesting about this particular web was Chris wasn’t really paying attention, and was spinning his iPod earbuds, and accidentally smacked one of the support lines of the spider web that was attached to a nearby clump of saw palmettos (Serenoa repens). Amazingly, it didn’t break: in fact, it barely even budged! It’s incredible how strong the tensile strength of this particular type of spider’s web is.  We've talked about similar-looking spiders that inhabit the South Pacific who also have incredibly strong webs, sometimes used by fisherman to catch fish!

At last, everyone was assembled, and we headed out. As we drove, I noticed an osprey (Pandion haliaetus) sitting in a nest very close to the road. I made a note of it, and decided to check it out the next day. Below is a picture from the next day. This is a story for another day. Maybe the next day. Who even knows.

We arrived at the first potential gator pond, one where Jim, Chris, my dad and I had fished for a few minutes on our last visit two years ago.  On that trip, I had spotted a gator track on the bank, so we know that they were sometimes in there.  But despite this, and despite a warning sign that graces the bank of nearly every pond close to human habitation in South Carolina, we saw no sign of a gator. Turtles, yes. This interesting looking fire ant (Solenopsis sp.) hill, now abandoned? Interesting, yes, as were these orange mushrooms and little burrows dug out by some sort of crab. But no gators.

On our way to a second pond, we stopped at a small crab dock that people use for fishing, crabbing, and shrimping. We likely wouldn’t see any gators here, since it was a salty, brackish area. The alligators here prefer fresh water over brackish or salty water, although I suppose anything is possible. It was pretty quiet and peaceful. Looking out over the water, we could see a laughing gull (Leucophaeus atricilla) flying nearby, and a brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) taking off from the water across the Wando River.

Looking down between our feet, we could see why it was called a crabbing dock. Marsh crabs (Sesarma reticulatum)  are all over the area, and we could see many of them hanging out on the wooden poles supporting the dock. Just beneath the surface of the water, we could also see a blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) hanging onto one of the supporting pillars.

Jim pulled up a few of the traps hanging off the side of the dock to show us what was going on inside.  The first trap was a minnow trap, and inside were several mudminnows and finger mullets.  The central mudminnow (Umbra limi) is a member of the mudminnow family, family Umbridae.  Despite their name, mudminnows are not actually minnows, and are instead more closely related to the pikes in the family Escoidae.  The two families together make up the order Escoiformes.  Meanwhile, finger mullets seems to be a colloquial term that applies to any small member of the mullet family, family Mugilidae, although I'm not entirely sure how precise I am about this definition.

The other traps were for blue crabs, whose scientific name apparently translates to "savory beautiful swimmer."  Blue crabs are omnivorous, and can find themselves prey to herons, sea turtles, and large fish.  Inside one of the crab traps was a large portion of a bottomfeeding critter, like a ray or a skate.  It was a little tough to identify, but I think that it might have been part of a clearnose skate (Raja eglanteria), a relative of stingrays and, more distantly, sharks.

Just as we finished investigating the traps, one of us spotted something: a dorsal fin, slicing in and out of the water! It was a bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), the first sighting of the trip! We watched for several minutes as it cruised by a few times. It looked like there was at least one other dolphin out there, which comes as no surprise considering their gregarious nature.  Jim was telling us how he had seen a bottlenose dolphin actually send a wave of water and fish up onto a sand bank, and intentionally strand itself on the bank to snap up some fish, before sliding back into the water.  This behavior has actually been filmed on the fantastic BBC program "Planet Earth!"

After the excitement of the dock, it wasn’t even disappointing to not see anything at the third pond. Besides, we had many more days of gator-hunting filled vacation ahead of us! When we got back, we spotted a good-sized skink, I believe a five-lined skink (Plestiodon fasciatus) hanging out on the wall above their garage.

That night, we decided to go to dinner at the Morgan Creek Grill.  This is a double-decker restaurant, with a fancier side below, and a less fancy level on top, where we have eaten at the last two times we visited. With a very nice view overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway, we’ve seen dolphins there in the past. As we waited outside for our table, I was able to get some nice pictures of some very exciting seabirds, including this juvenile gull. Lots of brown pelicans and laughing gulls were flying by as well, and several times we were able to watch as several gulls swooped and dove at each other, fighting over scraps of food. We also got to watch a group of laughing gulls diving at the water to catch fish, which was cool as well!

As we ate, a cute dog sailed by, manning the helm of the boat.

I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but this ship’s anchor looked a lot like a shark tooth!

So here we have the new and improved, updated faunal list after Day Three:

Amphibians:

American Toad (Anaxyurus americanus)
Green Tree Frog (Hyla cinerea)
Southern Leopard Frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus)

Birds:

American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos)
Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga)
Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus)
Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis)
Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus)
Fishing Crow (Corvus ossifragus)
Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)
Great Egret (Ardea alba)
House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)
Laughing Gull (Leucophaeus atricilla)
Mississippi Kite (Ictinia mississippiensis)
Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)
Osprey (Pandion haliaetus)
Red-Winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)
Reddish Egret (Egretta rufescens)
Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)

Fish:

Central Mudminnow (Umbra limi)
Clearnose Skate (Raja eglanteria)
Mullet (Family: Mugilidae)

Invertebrates:

American Cockroach (Periplaneta americana)
Atlantic Horseshoe Crab (Limulus polyphemus)
Banana Spider (Nephila sp.)
Blue Crab (Callinectes sapidus)
Fire Ant (Solenopsis sp.)
Lone Star Tick (Amblyomma americanum)
Marsh Crab (Sesarma reticulatum)
Mosquito (Family: Culicidae)
Squareback Marsh Crab (Armases cinereum)
Wolf Spider (Family: Lycosidae)

Mammals:

Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)
Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)
Raccoon (Procyon lotor)
White Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)

Plants:

Saw Palmetto (Serenoa repens)
Trumpet Creeper (Campsis radicans)

Reptiles:

American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis)
Five-Lined Skink (Plestiodon fasciatus)
Green Anole (Anolis carolinensis)

Isle of Palms on Dwellable

Works Cited:

The Fauna of South Carolina: Cetaceans

This post was originally going to be a part of today's earlier post, previously entitled "The Fauna of South Carolina:  Cetaceans, Foxes and Otters."  However, when I tried to upload all of the pictures of the cetaceans, foxes and otters, the computer slowed to a crawl.  So I decided just to split the post into two parts, and just pretend like it was one.  So without further ado, I present to you...."The Fauna of South Carolina:  Cetaceans."

Bottlenose Dolphins at "The Inlet"

If you recall, a few weeks ago I posted about another fascinating creature that I learned about when we visited South Carolina in June, called THE BLACK SKIMMER.  We saw it hunting while we were in a small coastal inlet, which we shall henceforth refer to as "The Inlet."  Our main purpose for our visit to "The Inlet" was to see dolphins.  We had seen them last time we had gone to South Carolina at the same place, and we lucked out again.  We saw a group of at least three, but possibly four bottlenose dolphins swimming through the area.  My mom was able to snap a couple of pictures, but it was very difficult to predict where they would next surface.

Dolphin going under.  What you see in the picture is its tail.

 Although all four of these pictures of the dolphins were taken at "The Inlet," we saw dolphins a couple of other times as well; I believe I saw them on four other occasions, all while out on our friends boat.

Dolphin dorsal fin, the same fin that strikes fear into people who have seen Jaws too many times.

By far the most memorable occasion was out in Charleston Harbor.  We were just on our way back from buzzing around Fort Sumter (the starting point of the Civil War).  We had been (boating?  driving?  floating?) for a few minutes when Captain Jim stopped the boat: he had spotted dolphins.  A pod of dolphins was swimming around our boat.  None of them got closer than twenty-five or so feet, but that was still pretty close!  We knocked on the side of the boat to try to draw them closer, as dolphins are very curious, like the polar bear, but nothing doing.  They stayed nearby our boat for awhile, and they didn't seem to be hunting or anything, so my guess is that they were probably curious, but a little nervous about getting too close.  Or perhaps they were getting close, and we just couldn't see them under the water!  Or, perhaps they were just, as today's urban youth says, "Chillin'." 

Another shot of the dolphin dorsal fin

Later on, we went to an excellent restaurant called "The Crab Shack" (scroll down to the "Alligator" part of the post), and they had a small display of local fossils.  I took a picture of a few of the more interesting ones, seen below.

Dolphin vertebrae

A whale bone

These large bones help the whales to "see" via echolocation at the deeper, darker levels of the ocean, where seeing with your eyes is virtually impossible without massive eyes, like those seen in the giant squid.

On our last two nights of our vacation, we stayed at a little place called Tybee Island, near Savannah, Georgia.  On one of those days, we joined a local ecologist named Dr. Joe Richardson on an ecology tour.  It was a lot of fun, and I hope to devote a post to him and his tour later on.  Also on the island was a small museum, called the "Tybee Island Marine Science Center" (TIMSC), which was also very cool.  I know for a fact that I will have at least one post later on about an amusing incident that took place at the center, and probably mention it in passing a few times as well.  But for now, all you need to know is that they had a few bones of a sperm whale that had washed up on the beach there a few years back, I think perhaps in 2002.  Take a look below!

Sperm whale bone, I don't remember what bone this was.  If anyone has any idea, shoot me an email! 

Sperm whale ribs

Sperm whale vertebrae

Finally, on our last night there, we stopped at a small shop.  I had gone down to South Carolina in the hopes of nabbing a Megalodon tooth or two (I know you're tired of hearing this, but a later post!) but I had been foiled.  I did find a couple of really cool fossils, including other sharks teeth, a few fossils belonging to stingrays, as well as a fossilized horse molar!  A lot of what I have is unidentified at this point, but I will keep you posted as I find out more.  But I decided to buy two whale bones at this fossil shop, and below are two pictures.  The Rupee is there for comparison.

Fossil whale vertebrae

Fossil whale bone, I believe it to be a jawbone.

This post is part of "The Fauna of South Carolina" series.  For the rest of the posts in this series, click HERE.

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