Myrtle Beach Trip: DAY 1

We got up, had coffee with Papa, and headed down to explore the Beach! Our stretch of beach is on a Private Access and the river between us and North Myrtle keeps most of that crowd off it, and all the hotels and public access for Myrtle is miles down the coast so even on a Sunday we only had to share the beach with about 50 people. We saw new gulls, lizards, crabs and LOTS of seashells while we adjusted to the intense humidity that is South Carolina in August. 

Carolina Wren (Briarcliff Acres)

Eastern Bluebird (Briarcliff Acres)

Dragonfly

dragonfly

Ring-billed Gull (juv)

Laughing Gull

Ruddy Turnstone

Ring billed Gull

Sanderling

Six-lined Racerunner (f)

Six-lined Racerunner (juv)

Six-lined Racerunner (m)

Yellow legged gull OR Lesser Black Backed Gull (the two are almost indistinguishable without extended observation)

Royal Tern

Sandwich Tern (LOVE this guys name!)

Willet

Willet

After lunch we went to scope out an Important Birding Area (IBA) according to the South Carolina Audubon Society called Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve. There’s only one public access (poorly marked) and the only things we found there were a lot of high voltage power lines and a power station for a neighboring development. We were hugely disappointed, so headed a little further south on Hwy17  to Huntington Beach State Park. 

We were STUNNED by the shorebirds! 

Anhinga (f) swallowing a fish!

huge colorful spider

Anhinga (m) - Male Anhinga have dark necks and heads, while females have pale, buffy colored necks

Anhinga (m)

Great Egret

Little Blue Heron

Roseate Spoonbill and Wood Storks (both threatened birds, the spoonbill is very rare in SC - too far north)

Snowy Egret

Spotted Sandpiper

Tri-colored heron

Tri-colored heron in flight

White Ibis (adult-white, juvenile-brown)

White Ibis

Wood Stork

After our walk around Huntington we headed home to grill some Telsrow grown T-bones! Papa bragged about them to his poker buddies the next evening.