North Myrtle Beach birds

 Our first full day of vacation was spent settling in. I slept right through sunrise. We had a leisurely morning and late breakfast. Jane and I went shopping while Jan had a Zoom meeting. Shopping took forever. Poor Jan was starving by the time we got home. We went straight to happy hour followed by supper.

The next morning, I made good on my promise to myself to get up and go for a walk on the beach. I had come all that way, after all. It was in the low 40’s, but I had enough clothes to stay warm. I was out at 7:00, well before sunrise. The tide was out, and the beach was the cleanest I had ever seen. There was no trash, dog poo, dead fish or rotting seaweed. Due to the absence of the two latter items, it didn’t even smell like the ocean. The shells were sparse and broken up, from which I guessed that the surf pounded hard.

The sunrise seemed to last a long time, beginning with a rosy horizon which brightened in one spot. The orange sun crept up over the sea.

Beginning of sunrise

I thought that the gulls were herring gulls, the type I’m most familiar with. Closer examination of the many pictures I took showed them to be ring-billed gulls. I walked all the way down to a pier on the north end of the beach and headed back. The beach was fairly flat, but beach walking can make you sore in new ways, and I didn’t want to press my luck.

Once the sun cleared the horizon, it sparkled on the water. Sun sparkles on the water are among my favorite things.

Sparkly water!

I took a self-portrait with very long legs. Our condo is in the fourth floor of the pale green building.

Self portrait with condo building

Right outside the building, I saw sea oats, which is so valued as decoration that it has had to be protected in some areas so people don’t pick it.

Seaoats

I was surprised to see a prickly pear cactus with lots of fruit.

Cactus! In South Carolina!

When everyone was dressed, we drove to Russel Burgess Coastal Preserve a short distance from the house. Jan spotted oyster catchers before we got to the parking lot. By the time we parked and got the camera out, they had moved. This is the best picture I could get, which was the oyster catchers far away on an oyster-created island with some cormorants.

Oysters, oystercatchers (orange bills), and a cormorant

A tern worked the shoreline, soaring and diving, never once posing for a decent picture so I could identify which of the gazillion gray terns it was. How rude.

A speedy tern hits the water

A great egret was more cooperative, standing by the road at the opening of a culvert. (I only know the species because it flew off shortly after and I got a picture of its black legs and feet.)

Great egret

Two little egrets flew by, showing off dark legs and yellow feet.

Little egrets

There were also some ducks, such as a bufflehead

Bufflehead

And a group of (based on the white spots at the base of the neck) common mergansers.

Common mergansers

Our next stop was Heritage Shores Nature Preserve. I got an excellent photo of a great blue heron looking grumpy on the shore by the Cherry Grove boat landing.

Great Blue Heron

There were no visible water birds in the estuary, but we did see a female yellow-rumped warbler (aka “butterbutt”)

Mrs. Butterbutt

And a northern mockingbird that hopped energetically around on a dead tree, apparently defending its territory.

Northern mockingbird

We drove to Little River and had lunch at Seabrisa’s Waterfront Seafood Restaurant. After that we crossed the border and drove around the North Carolina coast. Not much going on there.

We had our lunch leftovers for supper, and that was the day.