Renting cars is part of the job when you travel full-time, and this time I ended up with my first hybrid – a 2008 Toyota Prius. My friend Kostaki got a Prius right before I left my old job, and I was suprised at how roomy it was. So I was looking forward to driving one for a month to get a real feel for the car.
Cindy and I drove down to Dauphin Island last weekend. It was about a three hour drive each way down to the island, which is south of Mobile, about 2-3 miles into the Golf of Mexico. There’s a nice bird sancuary and public beach on the East side of the island.
Since we were doing it as a day trip and we had to fit 6 hours of driving in, we limited our exploration to the pond trail and a little time on the beach. We had some excellent viewing of several Great Blue Heron, as well as Least Bittern, around the pond area. Out towards the beach, there was no end to the Brown Pelicans and Laughing Gulls. Watching the pelicans soar along and then fold up and dive into the ocean was really entrancing. They would kick up a plume of spray three to six feet high when they dove down into the water.
The other neat view of the pelicans was afforded by the lenghy drive across the bridge connecting the island to the mainland. The sea breeze creates a updraft along the entire length of the bridge and the pelicans take full advantage of the updraft to cruise along between the island and the mainland. There were at least a dozen times we would cruise past a pelican about 10 feet away from our car. If you’re interested in pelicans, I doubt you can find a closer view of them in the wild.