Saturday was another hard day at the VC. Temps got into the 70's, and we counted 131 visitors. A record not matched since this past Thanksgiving time. Since it was our last work day this week, we did what we normally do on Saturday night, find a restaurant and enjoy the local food. It was the Cripple Crab in Hardeeville, SC. Shannon had crab cakes (the best she has had so far), and I had fried oysters. We finished as we normally do by sharing a piece of pee-can pie. We're ready for a day of rest.

The gem of Savannah NWR is the Wildlife Drive. It is a 4 mile, one-way road on top of dikes which allows the visitors to see and watch and sometimes get up close to birds of all kinds in the water and on the land.  This is the managed area of the refuge and is located where historic rice fields had been constructed. The refuge manages the areas by manipulating the water levels in the impoundments. The water is high in the winter to provide sanctuary and food for migrating waterfowl, and the level is low in the summer to stimulate the growth of plants and make food easier to reach for the resident birds.

The success of the impoundments providing critical habitat for overwinter waterfowl depends on fresh water. The Savannah River is not too far away, and over time as the river has been dredged for larger and larger ships to go further upstream, salt water has gone further upstream. To mitigate the last dredging, the Army Corps built canals to bring fresh water into the impoundments from further upstream above where the salt water reaches. There is talk now that more dredging is proposed for even larger ships, and it may be difficult to keep the impoundments fed with fresh water. But now there are a number of canals with cement controls that bring fresh water to all the impoundments.

At this time of the year, the impoundments are filled with waterfowl. The dominant ducks are coots and ring necks, and we also see red heads, green wing teals, ruddy ducks, pied-billed grebes, and scaub. It is common to see snowy egrets, blue herons, white ibis and our favorite the glossy ibis. We see both red shoulder and red trailed hawks as well as harriers patrolling the impoundments.

And one of the more popular sightings are alligators. They are pretty common when the sun is shinning. In this "cold" weather, they lay on the the sunny slopes of the dikes.

One of our standing jobs is to patrol the Wildlife Drive and pick up litter, trim grass, clear woody debris and just make things pristine for the driving public. Of course, Shannon does the work and I supervise. It's the only time that ever happens.