Photo by Husuk Suki Jung Dolphin photos by David Kotz
Photo by Larry Corio
The people who take care of the golf courses are also privy to the dawning of new day after new day . On the job by 6:00 a . m ., they literally see the animal kingdom ’ s changing of the guard . The nocturnal creatures sometimes overlap the “ early birds .” Jeff Stone , the golf course superintendent at the Ocean Course , has been with the Kiawah Island Resort for almost 30 years . He likes to describe what he sees when he comes to work as a sort of Jurassic Park . He never tires of seeing the night hawks and night herons end their fishing while the raccoons and opossums head for their hollow trees .
Residents who live near a golf course hear the steady hum of the ground crew convoy before they see the headlights , often blurry in the morning fog . The many vehicles and their drivers snake from the clubhouse along the golf path before peeling off to their respective sites .
The workers on Kiawah ’ s golf courses have come to respect the animals they encounter and have often helped untangle a snared snake or deer or rehydrate a creature that has been rendered helpless in the hot summer sun . They aren ’ t surprised to find an alligator yawning awake on a golf green or a coachwhip raising half its body above the grasses to welcome the morning
Stone particularly enjoys seeing and hearing the birds wake up as soon as the sun peeks over the horizon . Sometimes an
entire flock of what seems like thousands will swoop over the golf course in the early morning light , their ribbon of motion following the curvature of the fairways .
Stone sees silky otters bobbing in the marsh and brown rabbits hopping through the sand , sights that only the early risers are privy to . He has interesting tales from the links , such as the time he witnessed a fight between a doe and a bobcat . At first he thought he was watching two deer until he realized that one creature was a doe with a fawn and the other was a bobcat .
The doe was valiant in her struggle to keep the bobcat away and delivered blow after blow with her hoof to the bobcat ’ s head . Finally , the doe prevailed , for the time being , at least . Another day , a squirrel came spiraling from the clear blue sky and landed on Stone ’ s head . It seemed that a red-tailed hawk had carelessly dropped the squirrel from its clutches . Undeterred , the squirrel hopped up and ran away
Just as poets and songwriters have heralded the early morning hours as a special time of day , so do the people and animals on Kiawah . In the words of the English author Eleanor Farjeon : Morning has broken like the first morning Blackbird has spoken like the first bird ; Praise for the singing , Praise for the morning . NK
14 Naturally Kiawah