Pat’s Wildways: Nature near Darien

Last week I wrote about walking around the town of Darien, Georgia and all the historical and scenic sights. But when Bucko and I go to Darien, it is not just about the town, but about the various natural areas we visit from there. And sometimes nature just seems to come to us.

Like when we went to Mudcat Charlie’s and the docks there on our way to Darien. This restaurant is well known — at least to us — for its great crab chowder, thick and rich and full of crab meat — and is often our first stop on the way north of Fernandina. On this recent trip, we wandered out to the nearby dock and fish-cleaning station and heard an almost familiar sound of an alligator bellowing. But no, it wasn’t a gator making this noise — it turned out to be a local guy, Henry Moore who was trying to “call in” a large gator that was lurking just beyond the dock. No, don’t worry, he didn’t feed the gator — everyone knows that is harmful to the gator if it gets used to people and must be destroyed. No, Henry was just trying to get its attention and yes, it turned to look his way when he bellowed. While Bucko chatted Henry up, I focused my cell phone on a small gator floating nearby and was delighted when it swam over to a pipe and climbed on, right in front of me.

Usually when we are in the area, we visit Harris Neck Wildlife Refuge, about a half hour north of Darien, where a number of bird species are often on view along roads that are fun to drive on and linger. On this particular trip, there were herons and cormorants in the large pond there, but not much else. And sometimes it is closed for hunting. But it’s always worth a visit.

Another day, I perused Google Maps in detail, looking for other natural areas we had not previously discovered. One area about another half hour from Darien was the LeConte-Woodmanston Plantation and Biological Gardens, said to be a botanical garden with collections going back to 1810 and open for self-guided garden tours and hiking trails. Well, it sounded good, but what we found were ruins of a once-thriving volunteer enterprise to establish it as an area for visitors, which apparently dissolved around the days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now all that stands is a deserted, abandoned office building and a few fallen-down signs.  Too bad.  It may have been nice to visit at one time but those times are long gone.

But we did luck out with another place we discovered on Google maps — the Cay Creek Wetlands Interpretive Center. This inauspicious little nature reserve was chock full of interesting species to look at from an extensive boardwalk cutting through a freshwater tidal swamp. Bucko and I strolled down the boardwalk in the quiet swamp with no other people anywhere around. The sights we saw may be insignificant to some, but we enjoyed seeing anoles, salt marsh moth caterpillars, and lots of interesting flowering native plants. The view from an observation platform provided an overlook of the entire swamp area if you wanted to climb it.  It was a hot day and we were tired, but we didn’t, alas.

On the way back to Darien from our fun day, we stopped to photograph the “Smallest Church in America” then gorged ourselves on freshly harvested farmed clams at another of our favorite restaurants in the area, the Fish Dock at Pelican Point. It is always top on my list to eat seafood fresh from the sea and locally sourced, and this place is perfect. They serve different freshly caught fish every day, but always have harvested clams that are cleaned and packaged on site, where the operations are viewable from a window in the back of the restaurant.

I’m sure there must be other sights to see in the Darien area but these will have to wait for our next trip up there, which I’m sure will happen again soon.  This place captivates us!  And it is a welcome break from the hubbub that Amelia Island has turned into when we just want to get away.

Pat Foster-Turley, Ph.D., is a zoologist on Amelia Island. She welcomes your nature questions and observations. patandbucko@yahoo.com