Congaree National Park - Columbia, SC

Sep 4th we visited Congaree National Park.

Technically, Congaree is not a swamp, because it does not contain standing water throughout most of the year. It's a floodplain forest that floods about ten times a year. Spreading northeast from the  Congaree River, the land is the largest contiguous tract of old-growth bottomland hardwoods in the United States. Congaree was named for the Native American tribe that lived here centuries ago and were wiped out by Small Pox. 

This National Park is free to visit 24 hours a day – 7 days a week. Despite being the least visited NP in the country I think they were all there today. (Labor Day) It wasn’t all that pleasant of a morning due to all the crying children, shouting adults, shrieking children and large panting dogs. No one was there to enjoy nature. We walked around 6 miles before stopping for lunch. The raised boardwalk over the quite dry “swamp” was one loud family after another. (I felt like I was caught in and old SNL skit “the Loud Family”.)

We saw at least 4 Pileated Woodpeckers right at the start. Then, the loud people came by and we didn’t really see or hear much. We got off on another loop where it wasn’t that “kid” friendly. But it was still quite busy with people more interesting in shouting than appreciating the nature. We scrambled over and under numerous fallen trees. We did hear a few birds occasionally, but they were hard to find in the dense trees.

 though we saw tons of these Pileated Woodpeckers, we didn't get any good shots

American Beech Tree

 Boardwalk

 we saw lots of great spider webs

 we also saw a lot of uprooted trees

 great spider

Sims trail - former road used by hunters & fishermen

 fallen Loblolly tree from fire

 Loblolly Pine

 the old iron box was used for making moonshine during prohibition

another cool spider web

 Weston lake

 Greg ducking under the tree

 yep, this was part of the trail

 more trees on the trail

Tupelo Trees

 knobby tree

 trail

 they cut a piece out of the fallen trunk as it would be too big to climb over...Greg in the path

 Dorovan muck (mixture of clay and old leaves)

Coal Skink

We had brought a picnic lunch and ate at the picnic area where of course there were loud crying babies. I love the sounds of nature.....

We headed out for the Bluff Trail which took us off the beaten track through a Pine Forest and we saw a lot more birds. (only saw a couple of people there so it was quiet enough to actually hear birds). We saw our first Red-headed Woodpecker! Lighting was terrible, but we got a few kinda blurry shots. We also saw an Eastern Wood Pewee. We have seen those in Panama, but it was the first we have seen them in the States. There is an exceptional density of Woodpeckers here. (at least 3 kinds) We heard tons of them and saw quite of few. On a quiet day it would have been an excellent day. 

 Carolina Wren

 Downy Woodpecker

 Eastern Wood Pewee

  

 Pine Warbler

 immature Red-headed Woodpecker

 immature Red-headed Woodpecker

 Red-bellied Woodpecker

 Yellow-throated Warbler

 Red-headed Woodpecker

Poison Ivy

We quit around 3:30 and went yet a third time to Sweet Cream Company. Today we had the Dark Chocolate and the Sea Salt & Pepper Roasted Strawberry. Yum!

I finally had a chance to get a photo of this mural we kept passing, but never were stopped in traffic long enough to get the shot.

 mural by Milagrosyall on the Tayler Street Parking Garage

Tomorrow, we are headed to Riverside Park for our last day here in Columbia, SC.