We spent our final morning walking the Assateague State Park beach. I should clarify by saying, I walked the beach while Bucky watched fisherman, offshore and surf casting from the beach. He was decidedly more interested in this than bending to retrieve a brightly colored shell, only to watch it lose its luster in the drying sun. I picked up polished oyster shells and broken pieces of fragile white angel wings. I only recognized them as angel wings having picked up many in the past on Sanibel Island. I knew their fragile knobby surface could not withstand the pounding of the previous days' waves. I picked up oyster shells having holes at the top and envisioned Bucky creating necklaces displaying their iridescent undersides.
The tide line was littered with horseshoe crabs in various stages of death. Some lifted their razor thin tails as if waving as I approached. It was both eerie and pathetic. My assumption was that the wind and waves had brought them to shore. It wasn’t until I returned to Bucky that I questioned my thinking. Bucky told me he watched the fisherman pull catch from their net, putting fish into boxes, but throwing crabs overboard. He thought the crabs might sustain injury when going through the net roller before being tossed back to sea. Maybe? By whatever means, the crabs on the beach were a feast for the shore birds. Nature’s circle of life presented on sand.
Occasionally, a gull stepped away from its seafood platter and a brave sandpiper, lured from its secure huddle, would venture in for a delicious bite.
I easily identified with the small bird’s desire for shellfish as we had enjoyed soft shelled crabs, shrimp and scallops twice in the last two days. The hush puppies that traditionally accompany a southern shore dinner were just as I like them with whole kernel corn embedded within. In my mind this legitimizes the hush puppy as a vegetable substitute rather than a dinner doughnut. Also offered as a side were “sweet fries". I expected sweet potato fries but was truly amazed when they arrived topped with cinnamon sugar! Southern cooks have a knack of taking the ordinary and turning it into the extraordinary.
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I was fascinated by the Semipalmated Sandpiper's one legged stance. Many shorebirds utilize this posture, shifting their weight over the standing leg. My guess it's a resting technique, but I'll need to ask my expert, Bucky!
Semipalmated sandpiper
Is this like circling the wagons?
Chincoteague Island, a seven mile long barrier island south of Assateague, is quite different from Assateague. Assateague Island is 37 miles long with the majority of the island in Maryland and the remainder in Virginia. A fence separates the wild horses in each state. Assateague can be entered by road in the north and south, but most of the island is roadless. Both islands have lovely sand beaches and many remote spots can be accessed by foot or bicycle. Bucky and I felt somewhat handicapped without bikes. They are truly the way to investigate both islands.
It is on Chincoteague that the ponies are rounded up in late July by the "salt water" cowboys and the foals are auctioned off. There is a large festival around the penning of the ponies. During round up week, people from all over the world come to Chincoteague to watch the penning of the ponies and to see them herded down Main Street. The cowboys move the horses from the Virginia owned part of Assateague and swim them at low tide through a narrow channel onto Chincoteague. The foals are separated and later auctioned off. Select horses referred to as, Buy Backs, are auctioned but returned to the wild as breeding stock. They often bring the highest bids of the auction.
My introduction to the wild ponies came as a horse loving young girl when my parents bought me Marguerite Henry's book, Misty of Chincoteague. During the festival, the movie,"Misty of Chincoteague" is shown on screens around town. For us, the town of Chincoteague appeared resort like and had an air of honkytonk. However, the trails and marshes are extremely interesting. The options to walk and explore saltwater lowlands is quite extensive. As most of the wild ponies are residing on Assateague, not many animals are seen from Chincoteague.
The ponies in Maryland are left untouched to live and die on the northern end of the island. We were told by a devout pony follower, I think they're officially known as Friends of Assateague, that the Maryland ponies do not receive any veterinary attention. This lady was a devout lover of the wild ponies to the extent that she left her home in Minnesota, moving to Maryland to be closer to the horses. She knew each horse by name and lineage and with which “band” they traveled.....band not herd. She told us about a pony named Thomas, named for her father.
The marshes of Chincoteague did provide some excellent bird viewing and the unexpected distant view of ponies. This particular pony sighting led to many vehicles pulling onto the shoulder and photographers leaping to capture the moment, myself included. I envied the length of the lens being used by the man beside me knowing his images would appear much closer than mine. We had been told by the pony lady that the colors of the horses in Virginia were more varied than those in Maryland. The Virginia herd, through the roundup, can be managed in ways the wild horses of Maryland cannot. The Buy Back ponies play a role in this.
Ponies in the marsh water of Chincoteague
We also learned from our pony lady that this mare is Moon Shadow and her filly is not yet named.
Snowy Egret fishing
Traversing Virginia "with my very best friend, they call him ragtime ...........Bucky!
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