What we discovered, after three days there, is that this is just the way things are at Little Talbot Island. According to the park rangers, it’s pretty much always this peaceful. The campground is lovely, set across the road from the beach in a pine and oak hammock. Our site was directly next to the grassy marsh, with a view of the setting sun, and we launched our kayak just a few hundred feet from our campsite. With several miles of trails through the hammock and five miles of hard-packed shoreline, we rode our bikes for hours each day. Riding on the beach is a blast!
The birding is fantastic, with diverse habitats attracting all sorts of birds. Our campsite was visited each morning by catbirds, cardinals, Carolina wrens, and a variety of warblers, including palm warblers, yellow-throated warblers, and myrtle warblers. The beach was rich with sanderlings, ruddy turnstones, semi-palmated plovers, and willets; brown pelicans and osprey sailed overhead and dove for fish.
If you’re ever in the area, this is a spectacular place to visit. Just don’t go before October, because the mosquitos WILL try to eat you alive when you’re in the wooded areas. Even now, the third week in October, we had to use insect repellent when we were at our campsite (by the way, we found the natural essential oil based Buzz-Away Extreme works great). But it’s well worth it, even if you have to use bug spray.
Beautiful pictures! Oh, for more ocean time!
Jeeese… just incredible. Thought that turtle was a biggun until the hand gave the scale… that was the same turtle, wasn’t it?
I was wondering if the photos would be confusing! The big one was about the size of a large dinner plate, and the little one was TEENY and right in the middle of the path where we were biking. We moved it so it wouldn’t get squashed. Hopefully we moved it in the direction it wanted to go!