Exploring the Coast: Crabbing on the Water and the Photos I Took

A few weeks ago, a couple of friends took me out on their boat to go crabbing. If you know me, you know I love to go crabbing. It was truly such a fun day; we caught a ton of crabs that they cooked up later, and we also caught a lot of crabs to throw back. Good to know the population is thriving. September is the best time of year for catching crabs worth eating, but I’ll never turn down an opportunity to get on the water.

I thought I would post some of the pictures from the trip because the wildlife and scenery of the coast is just to die for. There were tons of water birds (and laughing gulls) in every nook and cranny of the marsh. Every day on my drive to work I’m reminded how lucky I am to live on the coast. Sure, the weather can get crazy and we always have to bite our nails during hurricane season, but there is no other place like a marsh.

Some people want to live with an ocean-front view, I want to live on the marsh. The variety of wildlife is unbeatable.

Take for instance the photo above, they’re hard to spot, but the Marsh Wrens hide out in the tall grasses and sing the most beautiful song. It sounds like stars twinkling. There’s also an Egret hiding in this picture if you look in the middle and to the left.

I have a friend that calls every Egret “Iris” because she thinks it’s a very fitting name for such an elegant bird. I could watch them hunting for hours. They’re relatively social and sometimes you can see a few of them hunting a couple of yards from each other. Down here in Savannah we have two great spots for birds during their roosting seasons, and the colonies of egrets you can see are crazy.

A lot of people confuse egrets with herons, but if you line them up side-by-side they’re pretty different. A heron is a giant compared to this little guy. If you’ve never watch an egret hunt this is how they do it: when they wade through the water, they’re using their feet to kick up the bottom of the shore and scare any little fish, frogs, and snakes out of hiding. Then, they strike.

This is a pretty good video to show you just how fast these guys can be when they’re going after something.

Another bird we saw while out on the water were the laughing gulls. They get their name because their calls sound like laughing. I personally am not a fan of the gulls, only because they’re quite pushy when they know you’ve got food. I get it, being a bird is hard. But leave me alone.

We got caught in a storm while we were out, but like most storms down here it moved on fast. I got this picture of the gull circling us while we were pulling up the lines to check for crabs. If you didn’t know this, the laughing gull was almost wiped out by over-hunting in the Northeastern US. They must’ve all moved down here. Kidding…

Down below, I got a crazy shot of another egret perfectly centered between the pillars of one of the bridges we were fishing under. I can’t tell you how stoked I was to get this picture. I think it’s the best one I’ve ever taken.

Another interesting thing about this photo is all of the oysters stuck to the posts of this bridge. We have an abundance of oyster beds in the marshes down here, so if you ever visit and thing you want to go tromping through the marsh, don’t. I can’t tell you how many stories of tourists slicing themselves open I’ve heard. Oysters are the filterers of our water. The last thing you want is all that junk getting into your gash.

Stick to eating them instead.

For my last bird picture, I leave you with an Anhinga. This bird plagued me for weeks. I’ve seen it around before in this area, but I could not for the life of me figure out what it was, until one of the birders at work saw my picture and immediately found it in one of his birding books.

If you’re ever curious, look up a picture of their feet. The way they grip onto a pole or wherever they hapen to be standing is alarming. That’s one of the first things I noticed about these guys when I saw them the first time.

Anhingas also have a really awesome way of hunting. They swim under the water and then spear any fish they come across with their beaks. Pretty sick. I think this guy was drying off after hunting because he stayed like that the entire time we were fishing under that bridge. Here’s another video if you’re interested in watching them hunt.

To wrap up this post, I’ll leave you with a picture of our crabs we caught. Everything that wasn’t big enough got collected in a bucket until the end, then we tossed them back. Boiled up with some shrimp, corn, and potatoes, these guys make a good meal! Blue crabs aren’t what most people think of when someone says they’re having crab, but they’re a wonderful lowcountry tradition.

If you find out any interesting facts about these birds or the crabs, feel free to share in the comments. Until next time, y’all!