Nature

This is where the wild things are. Little blue herons, sugar white ibis, long-legged egrets, and hooded mergansers make the marshes their home. On any given day, there’s much to spy in the sky — orange-beaked oystercatchers, avocets, killdeer, black-bellied plovers, sanderlings, willets, ruddy turnstones, black skimmers, and all manner of gulls and terns. Extraordinary species of butterflies, such as the yellow and black Palamedes Swallowtail, also float on the autumn thermals and flit between flowers.

The tidal creeks of Kiawah Island are brimming with red drum, spotted sea trout, and flounder. In Kiawah’s maritime forest a world of bright plumage, shining eyes, and rich scents opens up before your eyes. The boughs of ages-old pines and salt cedars fill up your senses. Moss, lichens, pine straw, leaves, and bits of bark pad your footfalls as you maneuver around the bright green fiddlehead ferns that obviously make chlorophyll with reckless abandon.

Look into the distance and watch as the breeze ripples through the seasonal native grasses, making its way in a giant wave to the forest treetops. There are sea oxe-eye daisies to discover among the dunes, and if you’re very still, shy ghost crabs looking from inside their burrowed homes hidden in the sand. You can see why naturalists avail of opportunities to explore the Island’s 30 miles of marsh trails.