Huntington Beach State Park

    If you follow Route 17 south, you will escape the chaos and strip malls of Myrtle Beach and find a Huntington Beach State Park, a peaceful land of maritime forest and marshland. Alligators sun themselves right beside the breakwater entrance to the park. Black anhingas rest on branches and turtles swim lazily through the mud, all paying no mind to the photographers and birdwatchers ogling at them. Deeper within the park is South Carolina maritime forest, standing like a cathedral with walls of loblolly pines and live oaks and tapestries of Spanish moss. In a clearing near the beach is Atalaya Castle, a mansion built in the Spanish and Moorish architectural style for the wealthy Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington. Although it is not far from Myrtle Beach, Huntington Beach State Park feels like a world away.

American Alligator

Anhinga

Red-Winged Blackbird, female

Common Dewberry

Blackberries and dewberries are extremely similar, but there are differences. Dewberries have smaller fruit and grow with trailing stems along the ground, while blackberries have larger fruit and a more upright growth pattern. The berries ripen at different periods of the year.

Cannonball Jellyfish

Willet

Atlantic Sand Fiddler Crab, male 

Male fiddler crabs have one major and one minor claw. Female fiddler crabs have two small claws, both of which they use to feed.