Diggers and Shovelers

Well, this is the Northern Shoveler that I finally saw for the first time this year on my afternoon walk on this beautiful sunny day.   There were some lady Scaups sleeping behind him.   How coincidental that this morning as I was perched on my porch reading my morning paper, they were filming a reality show called "American Diggers" down on the beach.  It took me a bit of time and some investigating to figure out what was going on!  I thought initially it was people checking out the beach or seeing whales and then I spotted the cameras. 

To the far right is Ric Savage who is the owner (with his family) of American Savage which is a firm that hunts for artifacts buried in the ground. They had a tv program last year called American Diggers on Spike TV. This year it will be called Savage Family Diggers.  My beach is about 3/4 mile down the road from Ft. Fisher which was a major fort in the Civil War and the last on the coast to be captured by the North. You can't treasure hunt there which is why I assume they were close by.  Most of the accesses south of us were washed out by Sandy as she went by..

I believe the guy in the middle is one of the Savage sons and the lady on the right is Rita Savage, the wife of Ric Savage.  They guy in green may be the homeowner next to the beach access.  These pictures were taken from my third floor perch a block from the beach with my little Canon SX40.  They were there for about three hours altogether and there was some strange equipment.  Amazing how many fewer people you need to film these reality shows as opposed to the movies.  I only counted about 14 people altogether with three trucks.   There were two shoulder held cameras like they use for news.  For movies it is 5 to 10 times as many people and much more equipment.  You just never know what you will see down here!!  I have seen HBO specials, movies and now a reality show!  I didn't have to leave my porch for this one though!

This insignia on one of the trucks as well as tshirts with the same logo was how I identified what was going on!

Another picture of the Northern Shoveler, one of my last familiar winter ducks.  You can see all his irridescence here and almost see his defining bill.  These are one of my favorites.

I was going to call this blog "Dicks and Ducks" but in deference to Mrs. Savage, decided not to!!