Alligators

Kiawah Island Wildlife

8:00:00 AM




I love wildlife. Travelling opens your eyes to so many different things. While my family was on Kiawah Island for a week, we ran into so much wildlife. This post is going to be pretty picture-filled, I hope you don't mind! 

Crabs
Horseshoe Crabs wash up on shore

Bobcat
A surprising sight, while on Kiawah Island. A Bobcat on one of the bike trails on the way to the beach. People were gathered around it, and it really had no where to go. Poor guy looked a bit spooked.
Bobcat

Ocean Crab
When the tide would go out, the crabs would get stuck in the tide pool and zipped around when I walked through them. 

Beach Birds

Hermit Crab
There were also hermit crabs on the beach, I never knew hermit crabs were beach creatures! 

Jellyfish

After a tropical storm, a few jellyfish popped up on the shore in the morning.

Big Birds

A regular sight on our way to and from the beach. There was a massive Osprey nest, and they were fun to watch. 
While we enjoyed walking to the beach, we also took a few mornings to bike ride where we saw this bird. 

Long Beak

And our pal, the alligator. 

South Carolina

South Carolina

Bird


One Claw
Ducks

These ducks were hilarious, bobbing in and out of the waves, and riding them back onto shore. 
We were lucky enough to find not only one starfish, but two! 

Beach Find

And the turtle patrol was also out one morning, where we watched them uncover a turtle nest. They collect one egg from each nest, since Loggerhead turtles are endangered and they need to learn new ways to protect them. It's probably one of my favorite photos from the trip. 

Endangered Species

I loved exploring the beach at the end of the day when the tide would go out, and the creatures would have to wait a few hours until high tide again. I loved finding conch shells after the storm. We found 3 or 4! It was crazy. I wish I was still there! 

Beach

Sunrise and the Ocean

7:00:00 AM


Cold weather mornings have started to come back, and yet here I am still talking about my trip I took this past Summer in June. I haven't even started talking about everything I loved in Kiawah, South Carolina.

One of my favorite activities that we did, was get up early and go walking on the beach. The sun was always beautiful, and the ocean was still far out from shore. A tropical storm had blown through Florida, which is just down the coast from South Carolina, and brought up some pretty cool sea creatures onto our shore. 


Washed Up

South Carolina

Seashore

Kiawah Island

Sea Salt

Shrimp Boat

These boats were out all day long, but in the morning they were close to the shore and we could see them!

One of the oldest creatures in the Horseshoe Crab, they look like army helmets, are not harmful to humans and wash up on shore to lay their eggs! 


They were all over the beach in the morning, and sometimes we would see them when we walked on the beach later in the day. There was one morning when we saw one lone dolphin gliding among the waves quite close to shore. I was always the one to spot the dolphins on this trip! 

Honestly, my favorite part of the entire trip was leaving my phone behind and relying on my nice camera for photos and turning everything off for the two weeks that I was there. Honestly, wish I could do that again soon. (Maybe for Christmas time, after exams?!) 
I hope you all are having a great October! 
Check out my instagram for more photos from the trip! 

Instagram