Grove Plantation unit – The refuge offices are in a stately white plantation house.  Rocking chairs on the upper porch overlook hundreds of years old live oaks shading the grounds and flanking a lane leading off toward the Edisto River.  Makes one dream of mint julips.

Beyond the house is a loop trail along the dike system encircling a large pool.  Tracks and nests hint of residents; eagles, osprey, racoons, deer and alligators.  Water controls are set at winter pool so high grasses tower above the water surface making sound the first clue at identifying current occupants. Coots and Moorhens cackle and cluck, ducks quack and squeak, unseen critters slide into the water from trailside hiding places.  Actually identifying ducks is tricky since what we see is duck butt in flight after they startle us on takeoff.  We manage a few; wood ducks, mallards, and teals.  It is a good reintroduction after a pretty long hiatus from serious birding.

That’s not a tire! I had spotted a distant shape on the trail. Curved, knobby and grey-black and dismissed it as an old tire that had washed up during high water.  Wrong.  As we get closer, we discover a 6ft alligator and his slightly smaller buddy sunning on the (too narrow to share) trail.   Fortunately, they give way and we move on.  The sun is bright and warm now and we see little gators swimming and a huge one on the far bank of a canal.