Ocean Isle Beach Day

Saturday, we took Alex to the coast for a beach day at Ocean Isle Beach. On the way down, we made a stop at Green Swamp Preserve to check out the carnivorous plants.  A short hike on the preserve trail led through a forest that had recently been burned and across a rickety boardwalk through a dense forest area.  Across the boardwalk, the trail entered a beautiful savanna and we began to see the carnivorous plants.

And a lot of non-carnivorous plants were flowering too.

The rosebud orchids were especially pretty.

Partridgeberry has tiny little white flowers.

Continuing on, we came to another savanna with a ton of pitcher plants.

Unlike the tiny little fly traps and sundews, the pitcher plants are quite conspicuous.

They were flowering as well.

The sundews are so small, they are hard to spot.

I think that there were spoonleaf sundews as well as the more common pink sundews present.

But the pitcher plants were the star of the show.  I really love their flowers.

Like the sundews, the Venus fly traps are very small and easy to miss if not looking carefully.

We went as far as the trail went before hitting a wet spot and turned around.  Nearly back at the car, I went down to the mostly dry burrow pit to see some ten-angled pipewort flowering in the much.

We were the only ones around for our hike but another car pulled in as we were leaving.

From here, we continued to Ocean Isle Beach and parked at the pier.  We took a walk down the beach and found a nice spot to set up an umbrella.

While Sandy and Alex relaxed in the sand, I walked down the beach to the east end of the island.

On the way back, I took a detour at Winston-Salem Street and hiked the short Ocean Isle Beach Nature Trail.

The mostly boardwalk trail had very nice views of the tidal marsh and intracoastal waterway.

Back on the beach, Sandy and I took our shoes off and walked in the water a bit.  It was a little cold for a dip, but felt nice just ankle-deep.  Alex, however, stayed further up on the beach and refused to get any closer to the water.

When we had enough of the sun, we made the short walk over to Pelican's Perch for a late lunch on the patio.  Then we made the drive home.

Carnivorous Plants

Saturday we woke up to a chilly morning and planned to find some carnivorous plants.  Before leaving Carolina Beach State Park, we made a quick stop at the Fly Trap Trail.  Sure enough, part way through the loop, we spotted some of the trail's namesake.

Near the end, there were some pitcher plants in a pocosin swamp.

Then we took off, stopping for breakfast on the way to Brunswick County.

We stopped at the parking area for Green Swamp Preserve.  There was a small pond right next to the parking area.

The trail led through a scenic longleaf pine savanna.

The longleaf pine is dependent on periodic controlled burns to germinate the seeds and clear out the competition.

The trail through the preserve was blazed with red diamonds and was about 1.3 miles.

We saw some flowering pixiemoss along the trail.

There was a narrow boardwalk through a swamp area.

Soon, we came to a big patch of Venus flytraps.

It was a little early in the season and they were still very small.  We saw some pitcher plants as well.

A pinewood daisy was starting to pop up.

It started to get really swampy.  And we had to watch our step as there were a lot of little sundews popping up.

We turned around before the end because it was very swampy and we didn't want to trample the tiny carnivorous plants.

From here, we headed back towards Carolina Beach, got lunch and went to Fort Fisher State Recreation Area.  It was pretty windy so we first hiked down the Basin Trail.  The live oaks provided great protection from the wind.

Near the aquarium, a snowy egret was fishing in the pond.

The wind wasn't too bad along the trail.

There was some yaupon holly with bright orange berries along the trail.

The trail ended at the Basin Overlook peering into Zeke's Island Coastal Reserve.

Then we hiked back and took Alex for a short walk on the beach.

It was really windy so we didn't go too far.

Heading back to camp, it was much less windy away from the beach, so we went for one more hike.  We took Campground Trail to Sugarloaf Trail and headed to the limesink ponds to look for more carnivorous plants.  There were several sundews at Grass Pond.

Then we walked along the shore of Lily Pond.  There were a lot of lily pads but we didn't find insectivores.

Continuing on, the last pond was Cypress Pond.

We found a couple of real nice patches of sundews again here.

We followed the trail to Sugarloaf Dune and took a break here to enjoy the view.  There was a lot Spanish moss draped over the trees.

After a break, we finish the trail and headed back to camp.

We drove into camp for dinner and then stopped at Good Hops for drinks afterwards.  Back at camp, we made a big fire to stay warm.