Marcus Bayou and Johnson Beach (Pensacola FL)
/Marcus Bayou is a boardwalk over a water reclamation facility. We were there in the afternoon – enjoyed a forest walk without worrying about mud or tree roots! We heard many forest birds but did not see any long enough to photograph. The height of the boardwalk made for excellent views of shallow water…full of leaves and vegetation…reflections. The water appeared to be the color of weak tea.
The pine needles were long and there were both green and brown ones on the boardwalk – along with other debris. The boardwalk surface was rough….maybe stained pine.
There were quite a few ferns…a few fiddleheads. My camera’s zoom helped me get reasonable images of them from the boardwalk.
The next morning we visited another part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore – Johnson Beach. We waited a little too late for a lot of bird activity…only saw a Great Blue Heron
And some Laughing Gulls at the beach.
It was windy and I opted to photograph the various plants on the dunes that help hold the sand. There are wavey grass-like plants and others that hunker down and must sometimes get partially buried. The round glossy leaves barely above the sand were my favorites.
The roads in the National Seashore have areas of shallow water and accumulating sand – piles to the side where plows have scraped the sand just as they do after snowstorms in the north! We learned that the standing water happens after rainstorms…and dissipates quickly. That was true. There was a lot of rain the first night we were in Pensacola…and water on the road to Fort Pickens the next morning. We could see that there was a lot less water when we went to Fort Pickens the second time.
