Dauphin Island is home to lots of critters.
The most frequent visitor was the heron.
They were not afraid of humans at all.
There were 2 of them that the kids named Gerald and Brad.
The first two days we were there, the mosquitos were plentiful too! Dauphin had had lots of rain the week before we got there and there was standing water in the ditches. So the 'Skeeter plane was deployed! Luckily, it took care of the problem.
There were sandpipers of various kinds.
You can purchase this movie from YouTube.
Of course pelicans! Always lots of those!
And of course, seagulls!
Letting them go!
And we saw one little shrimp!
Supposedly there are manatees.
When we went to the west end of the island, Adam helped Jill across as she was afraid of getting stung. We told the kids to be sure to shuffle in the sand so the stingrays would scoot away!
Sophie was first to get stung.
Whenever we saw one, we'd remove it so we wouldn't step on it or get stung.
I saw one hawk. In Kansas, they are plentiful!!
Lots of crabs!
Almost every evening after dark, you will find kids out "crabbing".
There were little hermit crabs too.
The kids were happy to find empty shells to collect.
Look what else there were plenty of?
Unfortunately, August isn't the best time to come swimming at Dauphin as there were also LOTS of jellies. Ugh.
Eli got stung too. In fact, each of the kids got stung, and Claire twice.
Luckily Nurse Staci had just the concoction for it. Meat tenderizer, baking soda, crushed aspirin and ocean water. Make a paste of it and let it sit for awhile. We then add lidocaine to numb it. It worked great!
One year, there were lots of sharks. I suppose they were still there but I didn't see any. There was a guy down the way who was fishing and caught a 4' one. We've been told they don't bite humans. ?? "I don't know about that!" (said in the voice on the Alexa commercial.)
Here is a picture of Hannah back in 2014 when she caught one!
We saw dolphins every day.
On the last day, we saw one up close when we went out on a pontoon.
Each day we would see schools of fish that would jump out of the water. I never did catch a picture of that. They jumped too fast! We saw these little tiny pencil thin fish. Almost look like green beans but they were definitely swimming about!
People would walk their dogs. Our kids chose to leave their dogs at home but the kids sure missed their pooches.
"How many are Your works, O Lord!
In wisdom You made them all;
the earth is full of Your creatures.
There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number -
living things both large and small."
Psalm 104:24-25
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