May 3, 2026: Boneyard Beach

During our visit to South Carolina last week, we went on an excursion to Capers Island, the southern tip of 66 miles of protected barrier islands which starts just north of Isle of Palms.  We walked a long stretch of the shoreline facing the open Atlantic Ocean, through a habitat called a boneyard beach. 

The name stems from the dead, weathered tree trunks that resemble dried bones.

These are mostly oak trees, who's strong wood can survive the harsh elements for many years as the ocean advances.  There are also palmetto trees on these shorelines, but due to their soft wood, they are worn away soon after the ocean descends upon them. 

Live palmetto trees at the highwater mark with recently killed trees in the intertidal zone.

Barrier islands on the east coast are losing an average of 15 feet of land per year.  Some years they lose none, others they may lose 50 feet or more. Despite the efforts to hold back erosion on developed islands such as Isle of Palms, each time we visit, the ocean has clawed its way closer to the structures on the beach.  

While in the lowcountry, I saw a couple of shorebirds I haven't seen before, both of which do make appearances on the New England Coast.  The most interesting was the American Oystercatcher.  This is the only bird in our area that has the ability to open hard-shelled mollusks such as oysters, the bird's primary food source.  And an oyster bed exposed at low tide is exactly where I found it. 

American Oystercatcher searching an oyster bed for a good prospect.

Oystercatchers roost away from the shoreline at hightide, but as soon as the tide goes out enough to expose the oyster beds, they swoop in to look for vulnerable oysters.  The preferred method to consume an oyster is to thrust its sharp beak into a slightly open oyster and immediately sever the muscle that the bivalve uses to clamp its shell shut. 

Oysters exposed at low tide.  (I ate a few of these last week!)

Once severed, it's easy pickings to pluck out the good parts.  This process however, isn't risk-free.  It the bird misses the hinge muscle, the mollusk can clamp down on the bird's beak holding it in place, and if the oyster is securely attached to the ground, the bird will be held captive until the tide rises, which could mean the demise of the bird.  A second, safer, but more labor intensive method, is to hammer away at the oyster until the shell cracks, at which point it can reach in to cut the muscle and open the shell.  [Ref:  Cornell Lab of Ornithology]

The other new bird I saw was a Whimbrel, which doesn't spend much time on the New England coast.  It stops here only to refuel on its way between breeding grounds in the arctic and its summer domicile anywhere from the mid-Atlantic to the southernmost tip of South America.

Hudsonian Whimbrel on  the mudflats of Pitt Street Bridge 

The whimbrel uses it equally highly adapted bill to consume a different form of seafood, crustaceans, with its preferred dinner being the fiddler crab.  It uses its long, curved beak to probe down the fiddler crab's tunnel in the mud to extract it, often eating it whole, but perhaps removing its claws and legs first.  [Ref:  Cornell Lab of Ornithology]

Fiddler crabs in South Carolina

One more animal I'll mention is a mink that we saw running along the edge of a saltwater marsh at the Pitt Street Bridge.

A mink still damp from its swim in the saltmarsh.

It was behaving just like the minks at Lake Wicwas which travel the shoreline of the lake, moving back and forth between land and water using their excellent swimming and running abilities as they hunt for food.

Back home in New Hampshire, I was happy to see the Trailing Arbutus had bloomed.

Trailing Arbutus - the sweetest little flower you'll ever meet.

These incredibly sweet smelling flowers are the first of the deep forest flowers to bloom, and will soon be followed by many others.  It's also called the Mayflower, supposedly named by the Pilgrims in the first spring after arriving in Plymouth, and named for the boat that brought them to America.  It was voted the state flower of Massachusetts by the school children in 1918.

The red maples were just starting to put out their pretty red flowers as we left New Hampshire to head south.

Red maple flowers.

By the time we returned, small leaves and seed stalks had formed.

One more warm day and I expect lots of things will pop!