Silly Afternoon at Rosebank Farms

Kiawah animals are up to something...

Nature gets development angst and people leave

Just for fun.

Kiawah Island

- Kiawah Island.

In this video;

- "Vanderhorst Allee of the Oaks," which follows a path dating to 1772 from the Vanderhorst Plantation. At this time, the Vanderhorst Plantation had fields of indigo, cotton, and rice. In order to get from the plantation to the beach, the family would follow this route through the forest, lined with oak trees.

-Spider eating grasshopper. That's all I know about that.

-Wildflowers. Kiawah Island is making an effort to plant wildflowers and to reintroduce people to their significance. Why are these pretty little dancing flowers important? Because, beyond their aesthetic appeal, they are a vital component of the life of pollinators- species such as hummingbirds, bats, beetles, ants, mice, and more that depend on seeds, pollen, and nectar for food, and behavioral purposes.

-Fiddler crabs. These little guys are active on the mud flats during low tide. The males have one giant claw, called a cheliped, that they use for defense and attracting mates. Australian ecologists have been finding that male fiddler crabs are "bluffing" with the size of their claws- although they are supposed to be attractive to females because it means that the male is a good, strong fighter, males are growing big claws that are actually pretty weak. When males get into fights and lose their claws, they have been growing back even larger ones, which gives the benefit to the loser of fights not the winner! They are called fiddler crabs because the movement of the claw when the male is eating resembles someone playing the fiddle. Apparently people like to keep fiddler crabs as pets.

-Osprey (Pandion haliaetus). These are also sometimes called sea hawks. They collect seaweed and sticks, and build their nests in the forks of trees located near water, as seen in video. They nest near water because they eat fish, and they want to make sure to have an abundant food supply for their babies. They like to nest high up in trees, which is becoming a problem in areas where there is either too large a population of osprey, or due to habitat manipulation, a shortage of tall nesting places.

Shakespeare referenced Osprey in Act 5 of Coriolanus, saying

"I think he'll be to Rome

As the osprey to the fish, who takes it

By sovereignty of nature."

Cabbage Palm. These can tolerate a lot of soil saturation, so grow well, either singularly or in groves, near coastal swamps and wetlands.

Mmm, this place reintroduces you to the sky, the tides, the "vacation" absence of time.

The clouds always seem to form recognizable shapes here; the make me realize the way that nature must have spoken when written language didn't take the form of alphabetic sounds, but represented the images of the visible world. The clouds could say sentences with their shapes, that must have been so exciting! And the sound, the wind and ocean. We have debated which is louder, but as I blow gently into the rim on my bottle of beer, trying to make the fluting sound, the wind never ceases to do a better job...capturing all the acute angles that my single breath misses. Wonderful!

-Kelly