Carolina Wild Photo (the blog)

Well, it’s been 2-1/2 years since my last blog post here. Not a situation of my choosing. Uncooperative weather, appointments and (mostly) Covid restrictions threw up multiple road blocks against traveling for photography. My return last week to Rachel Carson Reserve and Shackleford was planned and paid for 18 months ago when I thought the Covid mess was about to turn around. Finally though, I’ve jumped the hurdles and got in three beautiful days of weather Nov. 30 to Dec. 2 photographing the wild horses. It only goes to prove that even in “winter” you can have fun visiting the wild horses at Beaufort.

The first thing I saw when I set foot on Rachel Carson Reserve wasn’t wild horses, but a pair of Sandhill Cranes. That was quite a surprise, as this was my first sighting ever of Sandhill Cranes, and I didn’t know they frequented North Carolina’s coast at all. They were too far away for anything but an identification shot, but at least I have something to show.

On the first day the weather was sunny with temps in the upper 60’s, which isn’t normal for December. But even with that great weather the horses were mostly keeping to the trees on the back side of Rachel Carson on the first day. We had to do a lot of walking to even find the horses. They were not gathering in a large group of 12-18 in the late afternoon as they usually do, so we were only finding small family groups of 2 to 4 at a time.

Without the usual mixing of family groups there was none of the interaction between stallions as would have been the case most of the time. The stallions were not herding their mares around either. Everything was relaxed for a change. In fact, the horses seemed to be spending as much time taking naps on their feet as they spent eating. Finally we called it a day and headed back to the boat with Capt. Monty of Seavisions Charters. Tomorrow would be a longer day, with time on both Rachel Carson Reserve and Shackleford Banks, coming up in Part 2 – Return to Rachel Carson Reserve and Shackleford Banks.