Tag: map turtle

Slow moving waters: Patsaliga Creek, near Andalusia, Alabama

Meeting aome intriguing inhabitants of a tributary of the Conecuh River

After anxiously stalking back and forth in the woods with a repetitive clicking call, this limpkin decided I was alright and strutted and posed for quite a while.

I love stumbling upon an experience purely by chance. In searching for a laundromat, I noticed a sizable body of water north of Andalusia, Alabama. Certainly, it was more substantial than the tiny, mostly spring-fed sinkhole ponds of the nearby Conecuh (cuh-NECK-uh) National Forest where I was camping. After laundry and worship at the Southside Baptist Church, I found the boat launch and a friendly bass fisherman also launching. “That way, it’s all river,” he pointed out, “just watch out for moccasins. There are plenty of them up that way.”

It felt refreshing to be on moving water again. I assumed this was the Conecuh River, which was impounded to create Point A Reservoir, just below. Turns out I was on a tributary of the Conecuh.

I calculated the current at about half a mile an hour, upstream first, just the way I like it. The limpkin called my attention with a strange, unfamiliar, piercing call that no one could miss, then segued to the clicking sound while walking. There were also many turtles out in the on again, off again sun.

I’m still working on identifying this small map turtle. I saw many of these individuals with two distinctive bumps on their peaked shells, often clinging to steeply slanted branches.
The friendly bass fisherman mentioned duck hunting up a little side creek, so I ventured up into this cypress swamp, where I quickly reached a dead end guarded by hungry mosquitoes.

I’ve been using my Garmin Etrex 30 handheld GPS on these paddles to measure distance. This out and back was a little over four miles total, with an average moving speed of 2.0 mph. I’m naturally a slow paddler who spends a lot of time drifting to look at and photograph my surroundings. For those of you keeping track, I now have about thirty-five miles on my new Oru Lake kayak.

One of many flowering trees announcing the start of spring in Alabama. This one was a species of serviceberry or shadbush, perhaps downy serviceberry.
This is the map I had to work with, an example of the drawbacks of embracing a spur-of-the-moment adventure. I launched at the upper #1, and the creek that I paddled up is not labeled.