Birding the
Ocean Course
O
Story and photographs by Paul Roberts
ver the years one of the things I have most
enjoyed on Kiawah is taking a bird walk—
especially one where you see a variety of birds.
On Kiawah, it is not difficult to see many
different birds. One of my favorite trails starts at the employee
parking lot at the Ocean Course. It includes the dunes, the
marsh, the lagoon, and the beach near the driving range. It
finishes off at that same parking lot, usually with a full list
of observations. Sometimes I even add a new species to my
Kiawah birding list. Come along with me on a virtual walk.
Here is how that walk might go.
I like to park in the remote lot on the right as you first drive
into the Ocean Course. It has a grass, not gravel surface and is
surrounded on three sides by undergrowth and marsh. There
usually is something there—a great egret, white ibis, some
crows, something. This morning there was a bird in the wax
myrtles in the back of the lot. I could not tell what it was. The
song was unfamiliar. I just could not see it clearly enough. I
walked slowly up to the bushes and stepped inside the nearest
bush where there are more branches, but fewer leaves, and
there he was—a yellow-billed cuckoo. I took several shots
with my long lens before he moved to a different bush and
then abruptly flew away. I was elated. Not only was it the first
yellow-billed cuckoo (right) I have ever seen, but also it is on
the “rarely seen on Kiawah” list.
I moved next door to the tiny pond on the turn of the
road. It is now completely overgrown with cattails and
undergrowth, but at that time it was more open, and the wax
myrtles around the edges would frequently offer shelter for a
yellow-crowned night heron, or a flock of ibis. This morning
the prize was a dozen or so baby alligators (right) moving in
and out of the black water and green slime of the pond.
The mornings in summer on Kiawah are always warm, but
not outright hot yet, and I always wear my “Bug Off ” shirt
with long sleeves to fend off the mosquitos and the no-see-
ums. I turned to the unused fairway before the first tee and
walked the road along the left edge watching for birds in the
undergrowth along the edge of the cart path. There is a series
of ponds that cut across the course between the first green
and the second tee. There are frequently birds either on the
pond or in the cattails around the perimeter. This morning
there was a flock of white ibis (right) cavorting in the creek
near the crossing between green 1 and tee 2.
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Yellow-billed cuckoo.
Baby alligator.
White ibis.
Naturally Kiawah