Bird Sanctuary

We love swimming at Dauphin Island, but they also have a Bird Sanctuary and I really wanted to explore it!  I love birding!   

 Hannah and Sophia decided to come with us.

 Hannah took many of these pictures!

  We could hear many birds and saw a few also.

 I had my bird book with us and we would try to identify them.

"Dauphin Island has been named one of the top four locations in North America for viewing spring migrations! The Sanctuary consists of 137 acres of maritime forest, marshes, and dunes, including a lake, a swamp, and a beach."

 "Recently, the 3 mile trail system within the Sanctuary has been designated as a National Recreational Trail. It is located at the Eastern end of Dauphin Island, a 14 mile-long barrier island situated off the Alabama Gulf Coast."

"The Sanctuary is of vital importance because it is the largest segment of protected forest on the Island and the first landfall for neo-tropical migrant birds after their long flight across the Gulf from Central and South America each spring. Here these birds, often exhausted and weakened from severe weather during the long flight, find their first food and shelter. Of the 445 species officially documented in Alabama presently, 420 (95%) have been observed on the island. It is also their final stop before their return flight each fall. The Bird Sanctuary has allowed Dauphin Island to be recognized by the National Audubon Society as being “Globally Important” for bird migrations." - Dauphinisland.org/audubon

 We came to this sign.  We DID NOT want to get into poison ivy!!

 We were still recovering from that when we got into it helping in our neighborhood clean up!

No way we wanted that again!!

 So many varieties of plant life!

We came out to the open sea.

 See the map in Sophia's hands?  Well, evidently it didn't help.  We got a little lost.  When we came to the end of this path, there was a  sign that said we shouldn't have been on it.  Oops.  Oh, the girls were so worried that we had broken the law!

The girls wondered if the police would come after us but we told them that we were ok.  It was totally an accident.

 Dolphins!

We headed back inland but again, we got a little lost.

 The map wasn't always just too clear.  

The girls were tired of walking.

And they were worried we'd be lost forever!

The trail came to an end.

And it looked like there was poison ivy all over!!

We quickly back tracked!

Sophia said we should pray that we wouldn't get poison ivy so we did just that.

We finally found the right path back to the car and we immediately cleaned up, drove back to the house and took showers with Dawn soap.  We scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed!!

God was gracious and we were fine.  The girls said they will remember this as the worst time on the island.  But I liked it!!  Minus the poison ivy incident!