It is a day of joy when my puppy Blue and I walk with my friend Ann Nolte. She and her husband Hank Stallworth live on a portion of what was his family farm. Hank has put this property in the Congaree Land Trust so it will be an environmentally sustainable area for perpetuity. A serious birder, on a recent walk, Ann looked at and heard (even with hearing aids I don’t hear birds well) yellow-bellied sap suckers.
At a former seep now turned into a swamp by beavers, Ann used an app on her phone to identify several woodpeckers as they flew back and forth to dead trees, where some will have nesting cavities, but now are harvesting insects. Meanwhile Blue chased deer - there’re no babies this time of year so he can’t harm them - and barked his head off.