Visiting Gulf Shores

Alabama isn’t a state most people immediately associate with the coast, but its small stretch along the Gulf of Mexico has a character completely different from the rest of the state. Down here, forests and farmland give way to marshes, bays, coastal communities, and eventually the sandy beaches of the Gulf Shores.

I visited in the middle of winter, which probably wasn’t the best season to experience everything the coast has to offer. It was too cold for me to have much interest in swimming, and wildlife wasn’t nearly as active as it would be during the warmer months. Fishing, however, doesn’t stop for winter. I came across plenty of locals out in small boats working the marshes and waterways that cover much of southern Alabama.

Homes along the water are built around this environment, with docks extending directly into the channels and marshes. It felt much more like the Gulf Coast I knew from neighboring Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida than the Alabama I had seen farther north.

Southern Alabama shares a lot of its landscape with the neighboring Gulf states. Wetlands spread across much of the coastal region, and Spanish moss hangs from the trees in places, giving the landscape that unmistakable Deep South appearance. The transition is pretty dramatic considering that only a few hours north, Alabama becomes a state of rolling hills and eventually mountains.

I photographed this swamp around low tide, when the receding water exposed much more of the muddy wetland below. I was hoping that would also expose some wildlife, but winter wasn’t doing me any favors. There wasn’t nearly as much moving around as I had hoped.

I did at least get a nice air show from this giant pelican. I first spotted him circling overhead and kept my camera on him for a while. Naturally, almost as soon as I lowered it, he suddenly folded his wings and dove straight toward the water.

Had I been paying more attention, I could have gotten a great action shot. Instead, my reaction time was just slow enough that all I managed to photograph was the splash.

The pelican actually came back up with a decent-sized fish, so at least his timing was better than mine. It was one of the more entertaining wildlife encounters I had during an otherwise pretty quiet winter visit.

Of course I also found a heron. It seems almost impossible for me to travel somewhere with wetlands and not eventually come across one. They’re perfectly suited for this kind of environment, standing along the shallow water and waiting for something edible to wander within range.

These birds were another species I came across along the coast, although I wasn’t able to identify them at the time. Even during winter there was still wildlife around if I looked for it, but this was clearly a place I wasn’t seeing at its best.

Like several other places in the South that I’ve visited during winter, Alabama’s Gulf Coast left me wanting to return in a completely different season. I’d especially like to see these wetlands when they’re green, the wildlife is active, and the Gulf is actually warm enough that I’d want to get into it. My winter visit gave me a good look at the quieter side of the coast, but there’s obviously a lot more here than I saw this time around.