Wallops and Chincoteague in 1978

I’ve been scanning our collection of old slides and will be posting about some of my ‘finds.’  This post is about the first exposure to Chincoteague and Wallops Island. My husband – in the early days of grad school – went on a research trip there in May of 1978 and stayed at the Refuge Inn (still our favorite place to stay). The picture of the pony corral from an upper floor of the Inn looks about the same – dated only by the cars in the parking lot.

Growing up in north Texas – the ocean scenes were new to him. The research was a collaborative effort with the Russians and they were based on a research vessel off the coast which added to the experiences. One trip out to the Russian vessel resulting in my husband’s camera getting sprayed with salt water; it never recovered fully and he started his collection of Canon cameras with the following year.

Pictures of nature are relatively timeless. There are still egrets, water, and grasses,

Gulls (and unfortunately discarded tires),

And my husband and I still try to photograph the birds in flight. He succeeded with an egret in 1978! I was surprised that there were no pictures of Great Blue Herons from 1978. Did he just not notice them….or were there not as many as there are now?

The lighthouse still shows up above the trees although the trees seem higher now.

There are still a lot of radio dishes at Wallops island that can be seen from the road.

Since he was actually on the facility, he got closer views.

He travelled with a lot of instruments. He checked a lot of equipment. He was assigned a small vacant observatory for his set up for the week. This pile was what it looked like after he packed it all back up to come home. I suppose some of the briefcases and luggage date this picture too! The plaid suitcase was one that had been collapsed on the trip up but contained laundry and seashells collected on the Wallops Island beach for the trip home!

The last to be packed: the insect repellent (he still remembers the salt water mosquitoes vividly) and his sunglasses. The packaging for OFF has a familiar look!

Chincoteague Sunset…and Sunrise

Chincoteague was the only refuge on our 4 refuge trek that the weather was good for late and early day photography. We chose a place with water and pines for sunset and got there when the color was just starting in the sky and the reflections in the water were very clear.

I adjusted my camera to get the color and let all the vegetation be in silhouette just as the sun was at the tree tops.

And then it was in the trees.

Two Great Blue Herons flew to a snag behind us and waited there while the light faded still more.

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The next morning we were up an entering the refuge when it opened at 6 AM (this was before daily light savings time and the refuge was on winter hours). The sky was already rosy by the time we got to our spot – a little further along the road that we had used for sunset.

There were birds already busy in the water that took on the color of the sky.

A contrail was reflected in the water closer to us.

The light became more yellow and the geese continued their morning grooming and breakfast.

Then the color turned to orange. The sun was above the horizon.

Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge

The last refuge on our trek was Chincoteague. I’ve posted about our two prior trips (fall 2014kingfisher, egrets, cormorants, herons, gulls, lighthouse, and sunrise/sunset; spring 2013vultures, blue grosbeak, and egrets). We always see Great Blue Herons at Chincoteague. When I photograph them now I am looking for something a bit out of the ordinary. There was one that was all fluffed up in the cold – standing very still on one leg – framed by dry grasses and brush.

Another Great Blue Heron was perched on a branch over some water – preening.

I noticed a lot more dead and splintered trees this trip and found out that the pine bark beetle had been particularly hard on the pines the past few years and

Winter storm Jonas brought such high winds that is brought trees down on the refuge.

There were tundra swans that we saw in greater numbers at Eastern Neck

And snow geese (sleeping here) that we saw in greater numbers at Blackwater.

This ring-billed gull (adult non-breeding) was not pleased that we pulled up on the road shoulder near him.

We saw a few pintail ducks (and some buffleheads which, again, were difficult to photograph – and I am refraining from posting another blurry picture!).

The birds I had to look up on allaboutbirds were this marbled godwit (I think)

And a juvenile black-crowned night heron (my husband is the one that spotted this one in the brush over the water where we often see other herons).