North Carolina Trip

This whole post is backwards. Start at the bottom and scroll up if you're chronologically pedantic. Info to come later. Muskrats are much cuter than I imagined them, and Sarah continues to be hard to capture on film.

At Pea Island Wildlife Preserve we wandered around for awhile and tried to wrap our minds around the quantity of herons that hunted there. On our way back, a couple muskrats came up and posed for pictures. Sarah and Bob named this guy Splinter. I'm surprised by how cute they are.

I'm pretty happy with this shot of a tri-colored heron hunting. Unlike the great blue herons that I'm used to, these guys have a tendency to run from one place to another looking for fish. They're like the bass fishermen of the Ardeidae family.

I watched this great egret walk slowly, head first, then body through the water, occasionally striking like lightening, bringing doom to pisces in a flash from above.
Sarah is the most elusive of subjects, but here I've captured her with a tricky camera move. You can see me here as well beneath my Australian Trapper hat.

An old wooden kayak hanging on the wall of the boathouse in Manteo.
Zhora, Bob, and Jenn in the horse drawn carriage that Bob arranged for Zhora's first birthday.
Monkey fist hanging on from an adjustable keel in a disintegrating but venerable sailboat.

I was really impressed with this well preserved old boathouse until Sarah told me that the town of Manteo had built it a few years ago to replace their water treatment facility. I'm not sure what the town does with its waste now, but I'm sure this is an aesthetic improvement. Makes me wonder where the bell in the belfry marked 1941 came from though.

The birthday girl, Zhora, and her mom.

A family portrait... note the water monster.

Posieden rises from the depths.