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I thought I'd start with the our favorite go-to spot.  It never disappoints.  We always find something here to photograph.  Every time.

It has several different lakes with different environments.  It literally has everything; fresh water, brackish water, salt water, songbirds, marsh birds, alligators, snakes, turtles, minks, sea birds. Its just a lollapalooza of wildlife.  It's located about 30 minutes south of Myrtle Beach South Carolina on the eastern side of route 17. 

Start with the causeway as you first come into the park, then head north to the Nature Center to check out the feeders and see if the painted buntings are in. Then take a walk out onto the marsh walkway to see if the eagle is out or the egrets and herons are in the marsh fishing.  Then continue heading North to the parking lot and walk the sand piper pond trail

or head out onto the beach and walk the 1.8 mile hike to the Murrels Inlet jetty.  On the jetty often people report seeing minks fishing and darting around the rocks.  Take water and a snack.  It's a long hike.

 

Alligator Alley / The Straight Road.

At the southernmost area of the park, across from the Atalaya Castle is the straight road.  We call it Alligator Alley.  If you are at all afraid of alligators, don't go.  Seriously.  I also wouldn't bring small children but locals would probably scoff at my caution. Just to drive this point home I will share the experience we had there the day my Mother died.

  We had been sitting in the hospital with my mother for the better part of two days before she passed peacefully around 1:30 on April 25th.  After they took her away and we left the hospital, I needed to be in my happy place, out walking among nature so we went to our favorite spot - Huntington Beach State Park.  

When we first got there, we saw some painted buntings by the causeway feeders. and some herons along the marsh.

 

My son Ryan was with us and I wanted to show him the alligators. I had tried unsuccessfully back in October but I knew with it being mating season we would see plenty. We saw a small one by the causeway but I wanted him to see more so we headed back to the straightroad/alligator alley.  We saw several small ones and one large one and of course a lot of birds.  I wasn't really "present" and not very mindfull.  I should not have been there. You should always be on guard walking there.

 

 

 In the early evening, alligators will typically cross the straight road going from the dark fresh water over to the brackish lake.  On their way they stop and warm up on the sidewalk - "Splooting" like a squirrel on their bellys for several minutes before completing their journey.  It's a popular sight to see and I knew we were approaching the time of day when they begin crossing over. 

 

I should have been looking out but I had other things on my mind.  A summer tanager popped up on the merlin bird app I had open, listening and identifying the birds around us.  I was looking up in the trees and not along the waters edge.  I didn't hear my son twice try to warn me of an approaching alligator.  Finally he grabbed my shoulders and pulled me back, stopping me from walking right into this alligator that had just emerged and was almost on the sidewalk.  I would have walked literally right into him.  Who knows what would have happened then? Maybe he would have darted back in the water - maybe not.

 

He was actually too big and too close to fit fully into the frame of my 150-600mm sigma lens.  We watched as he "splooted" on the sidewalk effectlively trapping us on the straightroad, being between us and the exit to the parking lot.  I felt a bit uneasy as I knew he was just the first gator and there would be more.  After a couple minutes he/she finished drying off and dropped over then bank into the other lake.  I tried to hurry my wife and son on through to where the lake ends and it becomes forrest on one side and swamp on the other.  But my wife spotted a bird on a branch, right where the gator had crossed and she insisted on stopping to take pictures, against my protestations.

I pulled at her arm but she would not budge.  

Then behind us - where the gator had gone into the other lake, we heard a commotion.  It sounded like one of the marsh birds getting eaten. We thought the alligator had gotten a bird for dinner.  We were wrong.  

 

  My wife was leaning close to the water to see if she could see him eating his dinner but instead he came flying out of the water, passing within a couple feet of her, and plunged into the fresh water lake he had originally come from. Apparently he had angered a larger gator and it was he who was making all the squawking sounds, not a bird. Running for his life, he moved like lightning.  He was out of the water, across the sidewalk and into the other lake in a split second.  There was no warning or time to react.  That's how fast these dinosaurs move. But despite finally being startled and getting the crap scared out of her, Becky wasn't quite ready to head for the safety of the car - nerves of steel she has.  

  My son had spotted what spooked the alligator through another opening a litlle farther down.  It was a massive gator about 5 feet from the edge of the water. Becky and Ryan huddled near the opening, moving a bit closer to get a better look at the toothy monster - despite what had just happened seconds before- when the original gator demonstrated just how fast these apex predators could emerge from the water when they wanted to.

  As they watched the massive gator slowly gliding towards them,  it used its tail to suddenly burst forward toward them, sending them scurrying back to me in panic.  Finally, they got the message and with all of our hearts pounding fast, we were more than happy to leave the gators behind.

  We took a quick sunset walk on the beach and called it a day, thankful to not be gator food and end up "those tourists" on the news and Internet. 

  I'm not sure if we will ever return to "gator alley" after seeing with our own eyes that anytime they want to, they can dart out of the water and grab us and there wouldn't be a thing we could do about it.  I'm disinclined to repeat the experience of that day and have no desire to ever go back to the straighnt road to photograph birds.  I can find plenty out by the causeway.  But if my story hasn't dissuaded you, good luck.

 

After finishing the draft of this story, I read it to my wife and she found many typos. Then she read the ending and said "oh, we are going back."  ay yi yi....