ICW

Charleston To Beaufort

Colors like these don't really exist do they?

 They do in the backwaters of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) when the sun goes down and the sky and water nearly become one.

This is a land that Ospreys and other water dependent birds rule. People on boats are the transients. 

Sometimes people on boats are also accidents waiting to happen. 

Likely this boater was caught unprepared by Hurricane Sandy. The mast is lying in the mud behind the boat.

If there are birders out there who know what this bird might be, I'd love to know as I can't find it. 

Perhaps hard to see is the small fish in its curved beak.

Looks pretty idyllic, doesn't it. Every once in awhile we'd pass the occasional home. Finding road access and high ground together is a rarity in the swampland. When slavery provided cheap labor there were many rice plantation in the coastal plains. Now there is little farming until you go inland a ways.

Otherwise the animal kingdom rules here as a heron patiently awaits another meal.