proberts
September 26th, 2005, 09:53 AM
I spent most of the weeked shooting out at Assateague. Overall, I'm pretty happy with what I got. I only saw the wild ponies the first day for a bit, other than as dots on the horizon. Next time, if I'm not just going back to shoot snow geese in a month or so, I think I'll try both the bus tour and a pontoon boat tour around the island, though I suppose both of those will require that I shoot with something other than the 400.
There were *lots* of heron-family birds, gulls, turkey vultures, little Sitka Elk, sandpiper family birds, ponies, crabs and not a lot of tourists. They had a trail or two closed off, and the main snow geese pool was a grassy marsh area- it's all controlled so they must fill it up fairly soon.
The Virginia part of the island is a National Wildlife Refuge. However, the Maryland section includes a National Park, so my annual National Park Pass got me in without a fee (I didn't get the additional NWR stamp when I got my pass, as most of the for-fee NWRs are out on the left side of the country.)
This is definitely on my list of places to return to, though the t-shirts would be much more fun if the refuge was on Assawoman island, which is in the same chain...
For those of you in the US, the wild ponies are the subject of that-darned-book-we-all-had-to-read-in-elementary-school, and they drive them from Assateage over to Chincoteague every summer (one day in August I think) and auction a few off.
Paul
There were *lots* of heron-family birds, gulls, turkey vultures, little Sitka Elk, sandpiper family birds, ponies, crabs and not a lot of tourists. They had a trail or two closed off, and the main snow geese pool was a grassy marsh area- it's all controlled so they must fill it up fairly soon.
The Virginia part of the island is a National Wildlife Refuge. However, the Maryland section includes a National Park, so my annual National Park Pass got me in without a fee (I didn't get the additional NWR stamp when I got my pass, as most of the for-fee NWRs are out on the left side of the country.)
This is definitely on my list of places to return to, though the t-shirts would be much more fun if the refuge was on Assawoman island, which is in the same chain...
For those of you in the US, the wild ponies are the subject of that-darned-book-we-all-had-to-read-in-elementary-school, and they drive them from Assateage over to Chincoteague every summer (one day in August I think) and auction a few off.
Paul