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Eastern brown pelicans on the fly! A common but wonderful sight to see when heading out to Capers Island is the diving eastern brown pelican! Did you know there are eight species of pelican world wide and out of those eight, only two species of pelican will dive as a feeding behavior? One of those…

If you have joined us on a tour you know the goal destination is Capers Island. Capers is a barrier island. Barrier Islands are made up of three distinct habitats; salt marsh, maritime forest, and beach! Maritime forest is a fancy name for forest near the sea (Mar=water like marina or marine). Barrier islands can lessen the impact of storms due to their sand dunes and grasses that are able to absorb storm or wave energy. They are also dynamic because they are constantly gaining or loosing sand deposits by wind and water (island erosion!). 

Diane showing off her crabbie friends! Cannot believe we are already to August! As we are preparing for kiddos to go back to school we will be starting to limit our tour options so please contact our office or check our website if you have any questions about tours. Weekly Wednesday Low country boils as…

During the summer months there are different birds that migrate to the low country signifying summer has arrived! We are including a short list of a few summer migrants—there are several more but these are some we get most excited to see! Wood Stork : huge wading bird. Bald head with white body and black outline along very edge of its wings. Link to photo and more information on Wood Storks here! 

Dolphin jumping in the water! In the Charleston area there are 350-450 year round residential Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins. This particular group of dolphins or stock of dolphins only hangs out in the tidal salt marshes and surrounding estuaries. During the summer months this number of dolphins increases to about 900 individuals. This means there is…

Plz Recycle. Hi July! And welcome to our monthly citizen science blog post! We would like to reiterate our new public tour schedules and additional public tours for the summer season. We will be having a shorter loop tour (info here about that tour) and our crabbing trip is back (info here for crabbing trip)!!…

Happy 4th of July! We know traditions run deep for the 4th–including firework shows. We’ve come up with a pros and cons list of fireworks and a list of alternatives to using fireworks for the 4th. Maybe one of the alternatives could be used in addition to sparklers. Sparklers are easier to dispose of when…

There are key differences between tropical depressions, tropical storms, and hurricanes. Each stage represents development and intensity of a tropical cyclone’s “lifecycle”. Because we’ve already had some spicy storm activity we thought we would review the differences in this blog post! If you are interested in keeping up with tropical summer cyclones we recommend checking out this website provided from NOAA. Tropical Depressions are the initial stage of tropical cyclones. They form when a low-pressure system over warm ocean waters begins to show organized circulation. Wind speeds in a tropical depression are relatively mild, typically not exceeding 38 mph. Despite their lower intensity, tropical depressions can bring significant rainfall and potential flooding. Tropical Storms develop from tropical depressions once sustained wind speeds reach between 39 and 73 mph. At this stage, the system is more organized, and the characteristic spiral…

Trail Tales  There have been some amazing animal tracks out on Capers! Below are three photos of three different animal tracks. Try to guess the animal that made the print–we are providing the animal names scrambled as each caption. Good luck and have fun!

One of the fun summer creatures we have seen for the last two Junes are sea hares! Sea hares are soft-bodied, marine mollusks belonging to the order Anaspidea, known for their large, rabbit-like head appendages (a big marine slug!). These herbivorous creatures, often found in shallow coastal waters, feed on algae and secrete a distinctive pinkish-purple ink as a defense mechanism. The internet says another common name for sea hares is sea lawn mower (let’s make that catch on!!).  The two species of sea lawn mowers we’ve seen around Capers Island and the IOP Marina are the mottled sea hare and the Atlantic black sea hare. The mottled sea hare can be distinguished from the black sea hare because it is covered in spots and it is a greenish-brown color. It camouflages in nicely with sea lettuce! The black sea…

Hello and welcome to JUNE! (How is it June??). We would like to reiterate our new public tour schedules and additional public tours for the summer season. We will be having a shorter loop tour (info here about that tour) and our crabbing trip is starting back (info here for crabbing trip)!! It’s also time for our monthly blog about citizen science projects! Citizen science is a form of data collection that the public of all ages can participate in. It usually involves the collection of data and recording it or entering it into a database for different organizations. A list of citizen science projects will be listed & linked below! With the changing of spring to summer comes a new field work season. Different animals are migrating back to our coasts for the summer months. There are a couple…

Field trip shirts worn by some awesome teachers!