My baby birds are growing up!

My amazing little baby birds are starting to fly. All this week they kept getting braver and braver venturing from the nest more and more. They'd sit on the branches for hours on end just flapping their wings. They are really too big for the nest now, but one will take turns sitting in the nest at a time. Then on Friday they started to fly! They flew from their branch on the live oak over to the big palm tree. They'd stay there for a long time then fly back to their live oak. Then today they've been gone for hours but now are just sitting on the branch, their feet tightly clinched and wrapped around their branch- they look exhausted. I don't think it will be long before they fly and take off for good. I'm sure going to miss these little guys!

The Carnival came to town

Those Disney folks just keep amazing us with what they are creating on Tybee. The newest scene for the movie was the "Tybee Seafood Festival" complete with a full blown carnival on the beach. A honest to goodness carnival was set up for the shooting and the Pier and Pavilion was turned into an old style carnival/ festival. Much of the shooting was done at night and the pier and beach was lit us with huge Football stadium style lights. My pictures aren't the best but they show how the area looked. Tonight everything is gone, just like it was never here. But we are brainstorming about recreating this as an event next spring because it was so much fun just to have it all here for a few days!

We DO live on an island!

The Tidal Flooding is wild! Spring tides combined with the new moon created this abnormal sitaution. The water is creeping up everywhere on the island with the tidal flooding 10 feet over the normal high tides. Highway 80- the Tybee Road was shut down last night, fortunately the road was not shut down tonight. Marsh water flooded over Venetian Drive- these are pictures taken by Sunset Cove and Tybee Tides ( appropriate name for sure!). Horesepen Creek looks like a lake because the water is so high. I rode my bike all over the island last night and was truly amazed by the water.

Oh yeah, we do live on an island surrounded by water...

One of my promises this summer is to get out and enjoy the water which surrounds us. I sometimes forget we're on an island! This past week I did two things really, really fun. Kayaking with Suzanne off her pier on Horsepen Creek and ...... Paddle Boarding!

The first three pictures are of our group on taken on the North Beach with our boards. The class was conducted jointly by the Savannah Yoga Center http://www.savannahyoga.com/ and High Tide Surf Shop here on Tybee. We first did an hour class on the beach to get limber, strong and balanced ( watching the dolphins swim off shore was just an added bonus!) Then we took these big wide paddle boards and our paddles and learned how to get up on the board and then paddle around. Balance is the number one skill to have and yoga is a great teacher to learn and keep that balance. The water felt so good and warm that you honestly didn't mind falling in one bit. GREAT GREAT Class and I highly recommend the class!

The other pictures are of Suzanne's dock on Horsepen Creek which is just a few blocks from my cottage. We put the kayaks right in off her dock, paddled down the creek towards the back river and then paddled over to Little Tybee. The tide was high so it was very easy to paddle. After we got back, Suzanne who is a great cook we sat on her dock and enjoyed her literally fresh from the creek shrimp she made into shrimp salad. We kept looking for dolphins but no luck though we did paddle right by two dolphins in the Back River. Heaven on earth!

Tybee updates on a hot Saturday

Boy it's hot! This is like August weather- which I know all of our guests are loving but the rest of us are just hot !! Updates on life on Tybee-

The Saga of the Green Herons continues:

One of the baby green herons fell out of the nest on Friday!!! DRAMA! ANGST! WORRY! The poor mother and father green heron were flying all over talking but he/she was in the ground level bushes and there was no way I could get him/ her back up to the nest. I called around and found the most amazing person- her mission in life is to rescue and rehab wild birds. Pat is permitted and certified thru the US Fish and Wildlife and knows what she's doing. I followed her instructions and drove the little guy to The Landings in a big box where Pat lives and works- he was screeching the whole time, but I knew if he stayed in the bushes someone would come along and eat him during the night. I talked to Pat today- he's not eating unless she hand feeds him and he's scared and lonely. The good news is she's picking up two more baby green herons on Monday and they'll all be together. I've been lecturing the two remaining baby bird to stay put and not try and fly the coop early like their brother/ sister did! It's unreal how fast they are growing up- they are still another week or so away from flying but they perch all day long on those branches. Mom has been feeding them and enjoying my bird bath in the front yard. These are pictures of the nest and then the two pictures are of Pat holding my little guy and showing me his wings and how he was too young to fly.

The Last Song Movie Update:

We just continue to adore these movie folks! The pier has been turned into the 37th Annual Tybee Island Seafood Festival with a beach carnival, a completely cleaned up and fluffed pier and all the excitement of Disneyland on Tybee Island. Extras were hired from all over the community and were in the shoot the past two days. Friday night was the night shoot on the pier with the lights going, music playing, extras in place- and action! A bunch of us watched from the beach looking up to the pier and it truly was magical! I'm looking for some evening pictures from last night so hopefully I can post for everyone to see how great it looked!

We love Miley!

We truly love our newest summer resident. She is not only here working very hard on the movie that will positively affect our island's economy for years to come, but she's constantly out and about enjoying the island like the rest of our summer guests! There have been Miley sightings all over ( and let's not forget how much we love Greg Kinnear as well who's equally out and about enjoying Tybee.)

This is a picture taken and then posted on the internet of Miley playing very impromptu at Stingray's Seafood restaurant right on Butler and 14th Street. Here in the words of Libby Green who wrote about what happened:

"Miley apparently felt rather musical after dinner so she decided she wanted to sing and play guitar with a local artist named Jason Courtney.
Libby writes: "One of the few talents artist around, she played the guitar beautifully and sang even better. ( the song she wrote was in her pocket, she used it to remember the lyrics, pretty sure it was a " getting over a break-up song")"
No need to guess what that song was about!
But, how nice! What a treat for Tybee Island!
Most people are shelling out 80 bucks a seat to see Lil' Miley belt a tune. We bet this intimate performance was much better!"

Thank you Miley! We hope you continue to enjoy our island paradise all summer!

My baby birds have a name- Green Herons!

I LOVE how so many of you are reading the blog! I heard from not one but two of our loyal readers who've told me my baby birds ( and mother and father) are Green Herons. Here is the info they shared with me. This picture is how a male looks. Here's some info they shared:

"The female green heron lays three to six eggs in a nest made of sticks. Both the female and male make the nest. The male gathers the materials and the female constructs the nest. The nest is built in a tree, in a dense thicket, or occasionally, in the reeds or cattails in a marsh or in an orchard. The eggs take about three weeks to hatch and both parents incubate the eggs. The chicks are fed regurgitated food by both parents. When a parent comes to the nest, the chicks grab its bill to stimulate regurgitation. The chicks fledge in about three weeks but are hopping around the nest and snapping at insects when they are two weeks old. "

Our babies are making me very nervous! They are all three out of the nest and sitting on the tree limbs watching everything that is going on in the neighborhood. I wish they would stay in their nest until they are ready to fly! They are still too young to fly and if one of them were to fall out of that nest, not sure what I would do... I'm going to try and take some pictures to share.