Soundside Safari
I love a nature walk. I especially love a nature walk with a mission.
Several times I’ve gone out in search of Great Blue Herons, my camera charged and ready to capture images of the large birds. Of course the times I’ve actually seen them I’ve been driving on Highway 12, or at the Pony Pasture feeding our equine residents. As I’m not a daredevil who gets joy out of scaring other motorists, I don’t attempt to take photos while operating a vehicle. The time I mentioned at the Pony Pasture was one of the very few times I didn’t bring my camera with me. Overhead I heard some serious squawking. I looked up, and I’m really sure there were three Great Blue Herons circling above me. The Pony Pasture is also home to rabbits, mice, and rats, so the herons could have very well been searching for food. The point is, though, that I’ve actually planned walks hoping to see a Great Blue Heron to no avail.
Many of my favorite and most “liked” photographs have been taken by sheer luck. After all, it’s not like you can make a bird strike a pose, ask a sea turtle hatchling to chill while you focus your camera, or send magical wave-lengths of communication to dolphins asking they breech for a photo op. Those who know me are well aware that exhibiting patience is not one of my strong suits…unless I’m out taking photos or in search of a specific creature, so the photos I do post have typically taken some patience and effort. I said all that as a sort-of preface to the actual point of this article.
I received a call from a visitor asking me some bird questions, which isn’t out of the ordinary. But then, she asked if alligators live on the island. While not impossible, alligators aren’t commonly seen in these parts, which is what I told the caller. She continued by explaining why she’d asked.
While staying at the National Park Service campground on Ocracoke, this visitor, Jennifer, crossed the highway and explored the Hammock Hills Nature Trail and the sound-side ORV ramp. The ORV ramp ends in a marshy area, where there’s a small turn-around for vehicles and a narrow all-natural boat ramp for those wanting to launch a kayak or canoe. The drive to the turn-around is paralleled by Live Oaks, pines, prickly pears, and an assortment of colors provided by flowers. Small blooms of yellow and purple asters and pinkish peas line the road, popping up towards the sun. Lower to the ground you can easily spot the bright red and yellow rings of Joe-bells in little clusters of color. Wild morning glories, which look like magenta, purple, or white bells, protrude from bushes, through grasses, and out of the sand. On either side of the turn-around are marsh grasses, wild flowers, and cat-tails. Some grey twisty-turny branches of Live Oaks protrude from the ground, looking more like bushes than trees, and if you look down you’re likely to see a large number of Fiddler crabs with their one large claw out, ready to snap.
Where the sandy ground becomes marsh, the view of the Pamlico Sound is unobstructed. As your eyes peruse the marshy shore, you may see a Great Egret or the smaller Snowy Egret; their crisp white feathered bodies seem to glow against the greens and browns of the marsh vegetation. I’ve also heard-before-I-see-them Least Terns, which always sound so panicked, and of course the ever abundant varieties of gulls fly by and dive to grab up a fish.
I listened to Jennifer describe the sounds she heard in the marshy area by the turn-around. There was a deep low-pitched grumbling/growling sound coming from where the marsh grasses and water meet. Because the grasses grow fairly high, Jennifer was unable to see what could be making the sound. She asked a few people what creature could have made such a low-pitched growl, and some folks believed it was the sound of Fiddler crabs climbing over aluminum cans and other rubbish collected along the shoreline. Skeptical, Jennifer did a search based on what she heard. She was able to find a recording of an alligator’s warning growl, which she said was exactly what she’d heard in the marsh.
I told her I’d go out looking and listening for the gator, so she sent the recording to me. It had been a while since I’d seen an alligator in the wild, let alone heard one, so when I played the recording, the sound creeped me out a little bit.
The day prior to speaking with Jennifer, I’d purchased an ORV permit to access the soundside of the island. My primary purpose for buying a permit was to do animal rescues and/or releases, but I decided to put it to good use immediately by going on a search for this alligator.
I messaged my friend Stephanie and told her about the alligator. Always up for an adventure, the Nebraska native said of course she’d come along with me. We literally went into full-on Safari mode. Between our boots, hats, insect repellent, and accessories, we looked and smelled the part. I imagined my Hyundai Santa Fe to be some sort of rugged mud and sand-covered Range Rover that could take on any terrain as I traversed the sandy trail leading out the marsh. Our biggest obstacle getting out there came from the mass amounts of Fiddler crabs crawling all over the access road. There had to have been thousands, and of varying sizes and colors, somehow thinking their one large claw would stop my Range Rove-ehr-Santa Fe from harming them. I avoided as many as possible, and drove slowly to allow them time to escape. When we got to the turn-around, I swung my imaginary rugged vehicle around to allow other outdoors-women and men room to park. I parked juuuuuust close enough to the marsh so we could make a quick escape in the event any toothy reptiles made an appearance, but just far enough away from the marsh where we wouldn’t get stuck.
So, out into the wilderness we went. As I hopped out of the car, my glasses fogged up immediately due to the thick and humid air, and we both started sweating almost instantaneously. Aside from the sound of us slapping mosquitoes (insect repellent sometimes does no good against Ocracoke’s mutant mosquitoes, or maybe I’m just that sweet?), the marsh was calm and quiet. A spectacular sunset was befalling the coast. The sun was covered by a line of clouds and that combination created large rays of light which fanned out from both the top bottom of the cloud. The calm sound reflected the vibrant yellows and oranges coming from the sunset, and the sky remained a perfect Carolina blue.
We started the very short trot from my car to the marsh. In our waterproof boots we carefully navigated the marsh grasses on each side, carefully watching for any movement and listening for any animal sounds. We didn’t see or hear anything (I know, major let-down), but we explored until the mosquitoes and greenheads (evil, vile insects with TEETH!) forced us into the shelter of my SUV. Itchy and disappointed, we left the area. We ended up going back out a few times hoping to hear or see something, but we only saw the normal sights: flowers, trees, Fiddler crabs, various birds, lots of insects, and the Pamlico Sound.
About a week after we made our last Safari expedition, another visitor called saying she saw some large tracks along Ramp 72. This caller too was convinced a gator was lurking around the island, just back in a different area. She said the footprints and drag mark right down the middle – probably from a tail – looked just like those created by alligators. Jennifer called a short time later. Regretfully I told her we had not seen or heard a thing from an alligator.
If you’ve seen any prints or heard any sounds that could’ve been produced by an alligator, please let me know. With a little bit of tracking and some sheer luck, maybe I can get some photos, which I’ll post, like, immediately.
