♪♪ -[ Laughs ] You can see -- So, this is a little American alligator.

It's not a crocodile.

Okay, here we go.

Here's a couple more.

In fact, one of them just flew.

♪♪ Almost every region or neighborhood has some ponds nearby.

Now, ponds come in a variety of forms.

They can be just ephemeral wetlands, or they can be borrow pits like this one.

But all these ponds have an incredible diversity of life.

So let's spend the day exploring life in some local ponds.

These dragonflies get really close to you unless you have a net in your hand, and they seem to know.

Okay, here is a dragonfly, a really, really -- This is, I think, the biggest and most impressive one that we have here.

It's one of the darners, and that's because the tail -- the abdomen looks a little bit like a darning needle.

And that may be one of the ways it got its name, but this is a big dragonfly.

Now, I can tell that it's one of the darners because it has enormous eyes.

And those eyes are so big that they actually join at the top of the head.

And I was looking at the field guide, and this looks like a female.

Males are even more brightly colored with a bright-orange abdomen.

Now, dragonflies, both as larvae and as adults, are major predators.

They feed on other insects, sometimes even other dragonflies, and they can run things down, catch them out of the air, and feed on them.

Now, comet darners don't do real well with their fish, so this is one of the species that we need fishless wetlands because if there's a bunch of brim and bass and sunfish and things like that, they're gonna eat a lot of the larvae of these and also the adults.

And I was just noticing, if you look right over here, this is where a larvae crawled out of the water and crawled up the side of this tree and then the back split and out crawled a mature dragonfly.

Now, what they have to do is kind of spread their wings out and sort of pump fluid into the wings and then they dry and they're ready to fly as adults.

I think this guy's ready to go.

He's fluttering his wings and stuff.

So we're gonna let him fly off.

And off he goes.

But I'll tell you what, I was just kind of looking at the dead trees right here, and they are covered with the casings of a couple different kinds of dragonflies -- darners, like we just looked at, and there's also some skimmers here.

So I think we ought to see if we can go catch a skimmer.

Got him!

So, this is a different one.

This is not a darner.

This is one of the skimmers.

And they're smaller dragonflies.

I'm gonna be very careful with his wings.

And this looks like -- Boy, I don't know.

And I'm not great with dragonflies, but I think it's definitely a skimmer, and I think it might be a golden-winged skimmer.

It's got these little spots on the edge of the wings here.

Beautiful orange.

Eyes are still huge but not quite as big as that of the darners.

Really a much more delicate dragonfly.

But again, all these are major predators.

You know, they eat a lot of insects we want them to eat, too -- things like deer flies and things like mosquitos.

This one just pinched me.

You know, for their size, you know, a pretty good pinch.

But the other thing is if you're holding the dragonfly, they have the ability to turn the head almost all around, where it's hard to not get bit by them.

But again, harmless to people.

Extremely beneficial.

♪♪ So, we've been walking around looking for dragonflies, and I just noticed something that is so cryptic I can't believe it.

And that's what I love about doing stuff like this -- exploring like this because occasionally, you see things like this.

If you look right here, there's a barking tree frog that looks so much like bark he's practically invisible.

He's just sitting -- I mean, it's a pretty warm day, and he's just kind of sitting out, but he's blending in beautifully with this pine trunk.

Let's see if I can bring him over so we can get a look at him.

Absolutely beautiful.

Now, one of the neatest things about barking tree frogs is that they can change color.

They can be very green, or they can be really gray like this little dude.

And notice it's a tree frog, so it has those sticky toe discs.

And that's what allows it to stick to the side of the tree.

And this is our biggest native tree frog.

And this particular one sounds like a dog barking when it calls.

And if you hear a big chorus of barking tree frogs, it's spectacular.

Now, like other tree frogs, he's blowing himself up with air to make him look bigger and probably harder to swallow for some predators.

Just climb back.

I think we need to go do some dip-netting.

♪♪ Oh, here's something.

This is a dragonfly larvae.

And specifically, it looks like one of the skimmers.

Now, skimmers have kind of a different shape.

The larvae are kind of more rounded.

Of course, very cryptic, and they can stay underwater hiding on vegetation or a stick or something.

Very hard to see.

Now, some of these guys aren't in the water very long, and other species maybe spend the winter underwater.

So much of their life may be as larvae, and then once they turn into adults, they just fly and mate -- probably only alive for, you know, a couple of weeks or a little more.

All right, and I noticed one other thing that I didn't have to have a dip net to catch, and that's a leech.

So a lot of these ponds have leeches in them.

And again, leeches feed on turtles and alligators and all sorts of things and obviously would feed on me if I gave it the opportunity.

He's in there pretty good, actually.

Of course, leeches have mouth parts, and they can form a hole and then actually get a blood meal from their host.

But I'd rather this guy not, so I'm gonna pop him off.

Actually, there's a couple of these in here.

This is one that you've got to be a little bit careful how you handle.

It's one of the giant water bugs.

Wow.

All these giant water bugs feed on other animals, and they have piercing, sucking mouth parts.

And so what they do is grab a tadpole or another insect.

They stab it with this piercing mouth part.

They inject an anticoagulant of sorts, and once they've liquefied the inside of the body, they just slurp it right out.

Fabulous animal, and fabulous predator.

Just a small predator.

You know, this guy's really soft.

I think it may have just molted, probably.

♪♪ Oh, here's a neat, little salamander.

Just about lost him.

This is a newt -- an eastern newt.

And newts are small salamanders.

And they've got a really neat life history.

They spend a lot of their life in a pond like this, but also, for part of their life, they have what's called an "F" stage, and they walk around on land, actually returning to the pond to become aquatic adults and to breed.

Neat little salamander.

Thought I saw a little bit of movement there.

Here's a mud turtle.

And this is an adult turtle.

So they don't get very big.

But, boy, this is great habitat for a turtle like this 'cause they feed on aquatic insect larvae.

They eat tadpoles, all kinds of small animals like that.

It's a particularly light one.

Normally, they're kind of a darker color.

Beautiful turtle.

And they're a little bit feisty.

A lot of times, they'll bite, so you got to handle them from the back of the shell.

Interesting that they have a couple of hinges here, and that allows them to pull the head and the legs in and close up pretty tight.

And that gives it some pretty good protection against a lot of predators.

♪♪ You know, we've always had some wood storks hanging around on this pond on Spring Island, but over the last several years, a real trend has developed.

These birds are actually nesting here.

Now, Christy Hand works for South Carolina Department of Natural Resources on water birds, and she's agreed to join us to talk a little bit about her wood stork research.

Christy, thanks for joining us today.

-Happy to be here, Tony.

-So, tell us about these wonderful birds behind us.

-So, the wood stork is the only species of stork native to North America, and they're actually pretty large birds.

They stand about three feet tall, and they have a five-foot wingspan.

-That's a big bird.

-They are, and they're really interesting birds.

They are tactile foragers, meaning they feed by touch.

Most wading birds are visual foragers, so they find their prey by looking for it.

So storks -- They need really specific conditions to do well.

-Well, tell me just about coloration.

-Predominantly, they're white, but they have really beautiful black flight feathers in their wings.

And their heads kind of lack feathers.

-I don't want to call them ugly.

-Don't call them ugly.

-I know.

They're not ugly at all, but they're a little different-looking.

Let's say that.

-Sorry.

-They're unique.

They're unique birds.

But they start out really adorable.

The chicks are white and fluffy, and the fledglings, I think, are really striking.

When they are young and just learning to fly and through their first year or so, they do have soft gray feathers all the way up their necks and yellow bills.

And they really do become beautiful in the air, don't they?

-Oh, absolutely.

-They're beautiful flyers.

-They're amazing flyers.

They do a lot of soaring flight, rather than flapping flight, so they ride thermals up, and they can travel really long distances.

-So, Christy, how long have the birds been nesting here in this rookery?

-They started nesting here in 2011, but that first year, it was only about 13 nests.

-And since then?

-About 50 nests per year.

-Man, that is really, really cool.

-It sure is.

This is just such a unique site where the birds are acclimated, and we can come right here and watch them.

-So, Christy, what other birds are here?

It looks like not just wood storks.

-Yeah, we have anhingas and snowy egrets, great egrets.

I saw a black crowned night heron and some green herons earlier.

So really good diversity in this rookery.

-So, why did they pick this spot?

-So, this pond's really special because it has an island in it.

And on that island, there's a lot of vegetation.

They really need a moat to keep predators like raccoons and possums from getting up and eating the eggs and chicks.

-And I noticed there's a lot of alligators.

So what's the role of alligators?

-The alligators are actually really beneficial to wading birds.

They prevent those raccoons from swimming on out 'cause raccoons are really good swimmers, actually.

So it's really the alligators that make this a good site for the storks.

-Yeah, 'cause if a raccoon swims across, he may get eaten by an alligator.

-Yeah, so that's a good deterrent.

-And if he gets on the rookery, obviously, he's gonna do a lot of damage -- he or she is gonna do a lot of damage.

-Yeah, and what we've seen -- Wood storks completely abandon colonies after raccoons have gotten out there.

So it's really important for them to be protected from predators like that.

-So, Christy, wood storks are a protected species, right?

-Yeah, they're federally threatened, and they used to be federally endangered.

But they are recovering to some extent, and South Carolina's playing a really important role in their recovery.

-So what we're seeing here -- Is that happening throughout the state -- this increased number of nests?

-It is.

So back in the early '80s, wood storks were found nesting in South Carolina in pretty low numbers, but by last year, they were up to about 2,500 nests.

So 2,500 pairs nesting in this state.

And also, South Carolina's important because a lot of wading birds, including wood storks, come and forage here after they finish nesting in other states.

-And ponds like this are just a really important part of the picture, right?

-They really are.

The ponds and impoundments in South Carolina provide great nesting habitat and also foraging habitat for a lot of different wading-bird species.

-So, Christy, with all this research, what are some of the things that you're most excited about?

-We had a banding project, and just last week, we saw on of the birds we banded in 2013 back in the colony where we banded it nesting.

So that's really exciting.

That's the first year we did the banding project, and that's the first bird we've had back here nesting.

-And do birds typically do that?

Do they come back to the same spots where they were hatched to breed?

-That's actually something we're trying to figure out.

These are the first stork chicks that have been banded in South Carolina, so we have a lot to learn.

-Well, that is really, really cool stuff.

And, Christy, thank you so much for all your hard work, and thanks for joining us today.

-Thank you so much for having me.

-Good to see you.

♪♪ So, all this success with nesting has led to some real problems in this pond.

But Director of Golf Course Operations Jay Gratton has come up with some ways to deal with this.

-Yeah, we sure have.

With all the wood storks coming out here, they've been great to have, but they leave a lot of bird droppings.

We do a lot of monthly water quality tests to make sure all our levels are sustainable.

And then also, we've added a bunch of diffuser nozzles and stuff, so aerating the pond, putting oxygen in the pond.

And we do have some jet pumps and stuff that we put out there to move the water around and constantly keep it moving and obviously keep the stink down and the stench down.

-Now, you've also had some problems with trees dying, right?

-Yes, we have.

You know, the wood storks have been here for about five, six years now, and the island used to be quite massive with a lot of big trees.

They've died recently, and so we've decided what we need to do -- We had to do something.

We didn't want to lose the wood storks, so what we did was, as you can see out there, we planted a bunch of trees.

We planted some tupelos and planted some bald cypress, planted some willows, but also, we've built some structures.

And we've built about 10 structures.

They're about 16 foot tall, and put some rebar and put a platform up top, put some sticks on there.

-I noticed you guys used cable ties to put branches on them to get them started.

-We wanted to get the nest started for them and everything so they could come in.

And it really was successful.

-Now, it's important to point out, I think, that these nesting structures are not appropriate everywhere, right?

-Well, I would hope they would be.

I wish everybody could use it, but they're not.

They're only good for certain sites.

We have a lot of abundance of food sources out here, but we didn't have a whole lot of nesting sources.

These have worked fantastic for us.

-I tell you I love the noise.

I love the energy.

I even love the smell.

-Yeah, it's fantastic.

I know it's kind of, you know -- -But there's a lot of life here.

-There sure is.

-I really appreciate the work you're doing to make a place for these birds to live.

-Well, I appreciate it, too, and it's been a great time for us.

-I remember helping my friend David put these boxes in several years ago, and I've been kind of monitoring them over the last couple years.

Let's see if there's anything in there.

-Oh!

So that was a female wood duck.

So that was a wood duck hen.

Well, I think we know what's gonna be in here, and sure enough, yeah, there's several -- one, two -- looks like three eggs.

Now, they generally lay a clutch from 12 to 16.

But what the female wood duck does is she actually will strip some of the feathers off of her breast.

And that's what makes the down that goes in these boxes and keeps the eggs and the young warm.

Now, let me tell you what's really, really cool about this.

So, when the first egg pips, within 18 hours, every single one of those babies is out of the egg and ready to go.

And then what they do is gather near the entrance, and the mother will actually be in the water or underneath them on the ground and she will call to them and they will literally jump out of the box.

And sometimes they fall -- You know, if they're in a natural cavity of a tree, they may drop down, you know, 15, 20 feet or more, hit the ground, kind of bounce, and then they follow mom.

And they may go a long ways, you know, a couple kilometers, you know, to wherever she takes them and wherever she raises them.

Now, it may take those babies, you know, 70 or 80 days to reach adult size.

So just a few eggs in here.

And I'll tell you what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna close this back up very carefully so that she can come back in and lay some more eggs.

Let's check another box.

Now, there are no birds in this one.

See if we can get him to kind of peek right over the side.

So, there's a rat snake in this one.

Now, rat snakes love duck eggs.

That's one of their absolute favorite things to eat.

I'm gonna just reach in and pull this guy out.

And rat snakes sometimes bite.

And this guy looks like he's thinking about it at least.

Yeah, he may try and bite.

Now, I do not see any telltale lumps in his body.

You know, the ducklings don't stay in the box very long.

Once they hatch, they get out of the box within 24 hours -- 18 hours, actually.

So very little chance that the ducklings will get eaten, but a lot of times, these rat snakes will feed on the eggs.

And I have seen them eat as many as, I don't know, six, eight eggs in one sitting.

And it looks like -- I don't see any eggs in here, but it could be that this had eggs in it a while back, and the little birds have already kind of moved out.

Now, these rat snakes are terrific climbers, and even though this has a special predator guard on it, I'm not that surprised that a rat snake got into it.

I want to put this guy in a tree so you can see just how well he can climb.

I mean, he sticks to a tree like Velcro.

And you can see they've got sort of curved edges to the scales, and they grip irregular parts of the bark.

I mean, he's not only climbing.

He's climbing fast.

He can go straight up the trunk of a tree.

Better get him.

Boy, they are very athletic snakes, for sure.

I'm gonna let this guy go right here.

I mean, obviously, it's in the water, but these guys are terrific swimmers, and they're very common around ponds like this.

Now, we're gonna check a variety of traps, you know, to try and catch some of this stuff that lives in this pond.

And some of these are designed to catch smaller things, obviously, and they're quite a bit smaller.

And then hopefully, we'll catch some bigger stuff, as well.

Okay, here's one of the smaller hoop turtle tracks to check.

I love checking traps.

I just never get tired of this.

And look what's in here.

So, a bullfrog.

So let's get this guy out.

And -- Oh, he's still there.

Boy, I lucked out there.

I thought he went right out the opening.

And here he is.

And that is a good-looking dude.

Now, bullfrogs have a tendency, when you pick them up, to get really lethargic.

And believe me, I know he doesn't look really good right now, but the minute I put him down, he is gonna blast off, trust me.

Bullfrogs -- Well, first of all, they're true frogs.

so like the green frogs and the leopard frogs and stuff, they have very webbed feet, they're tremendous swimmers, and you can look at the legs on this thing.

I mean, they are tremendous jumpers.

Now, frogs lack the ribcage that a lot of other vertebrates have, and so, you know, if you feel them right here, there's no ribs.

So they feel kind of funny, and what they have a tendency to do is blow their bodies up with air.

And it looks a little bit like you're squeezing them, but again, I promise you this guy's just fine.

That was a little bit of a splat.

He's fine.

This is one of the smaller traps.

No frogs in this one, but something else I would have expected to see in a pond like this -- crayfish.

Now, crayfish -- This guy has some pretty feisty claws on him.

This particular one -- This is one of the procambarus, and you can tell that because it has fairly long, slender claws.

And also, the body right here is relatively long and slender.

So, crayfish are crustaceans.

So they're relatives of shrimp and lobsters, but they live in freshwater.

And notice this had 10 legs.

It's a decapod.

They're relatively common in certain areas.

Now, some species, and there are over 300 in the United States, are good indicators of water quality.

So if an area's polluted and the water's polluted, you're not gonna have certain species of crayfish.

Obviously, very, very important for certain bird species.

Great blue herons would eat these.

Ibis will actually feed these to the young because their young can't handle fiddler crabs, their normal food.

And so what the ibis do is they fly all the way from the coast inland to freshwater, where they collect crayfish to feed to their young.

So, how cool is that?

So, lots more traps to check.

This is a slightly different trap that I've been trying out.

It's really a modified fish trap that works pretty well in a lot of small things.

We got a couple things in here -- some tadpoles and a couple little, tiny turtles.

And a little, baby slider turtle.

And then the other one that's in here looks like a little chicken turtle.

Now, this is a lot more exciting.

This one's got a little more growth on it.

This probably -- I can look at these annuli and tell that this is probably this turtle's second year.

And then this little slider turtle -- And you see no new growth on this slider turtle.

Now, chicken turtles have really, really long necks.

Let me see if I can pull this guy's neck out a little bit.

You can see now he's a little -- And I'm not -- I know it looks like I'm really stretching his neck, but I'm just pulling it out a little bit so you can see how far it extends.

And slider turtles have pretty long necks, too, but nothing like a chicken turtle.

I'm gonna let these guys go 'cause there's some bigger traps I want to check.

A couple turtles in here, and one of them is a chicken turtle.

Looks like a big female.

I love chicken turtles.

You know, I catch a lot of yellow belly sliders, and they're kind of fun, but chicken turtles -- I think they're something special.

There we go.

Boy, that is a nice turtle.

This is not a male.

Now, I can look at the tail and tell, but I also can just look at the size.

Male chicken turtles just don't get quite this big.

Like the slider turtles, these live a long time.

And notice the really long neck on this turtle.

These turtles eat aquatic insect larvae, dragonfly larvae, and things like that, also crayfish.

And they use that long neck to poke underneath things and down in the mud where they can catch those animals.

I'm gonna let this slider turtle go, and then we'll let the chicken turtle go.

There's the slider turtle.

I'll tell you what, chicken turtles are really cool.

Okay, so, we're back, and now it's night.

So let's go see what we can find.

Man, things are just getting warmed up.

♪♪ [ Laughs ] Man, I'm just -- Every time I take a step, a bullfrog jumps in.

Man, there are a bunch of bullfrogs in here, and they're right on the edge, so they're not letting me get too close.

[ Ribbiting ] So, this is one of the neatest frogs.

This is called a gray tree frog, and he blends in beautifully with the trunk of this tree.

In fact, I heard him.

That's how I found him because this is a male that's vocalizing, and it's trying to call females.

And only the males vocalize.

And you never see this frog if you didn't hear him first.

And I'm gonna grab him just very, very carefully.

I'm gonna show you something really, really neat about these guys.

Turn my light off.

They have beautiful yellow coloration.

And this is thought to confuse predators because you've got this plain gray frog, and then when it jumps or stretches out, you see that blast of yellow.

And maybe it really confuses predators and causes them to miss catching these frogs.

Anyway, gray tree frog -- great voice, just a neat little frog for sure.

[ Ribbiting ] This guy just jumped off -- He's calling.

He just jumped into right -- got him.

So, this is a different species, actually a close relative.

The other one was Hyla chrysoscelis.

This Hyla cinerea, which is the green tree frog.

That's a beautiful frog.

Nice stripe down the body.

Beautiful green coloration.

And like the other tree frogs, it has these toe pads -- these sticky toe discs that allow it to stick to things.

Okay, got one.

Boy, these things have been hard to catch.

They've been very, very elusive.

And bullfrogs are really strong.

And so this -- again, pretty big one, but they get even bigger than this.

You can see this is a tympanic membrane, so it's an ear.

And remember they need to be able to hear because they vocalize.

So the males need to be able to hear the other males calling next to them, and then, of course, the females need to be able to hear those vocalizations so they can find a mate.

Okay, got him.

[ Chuckles ] This is a slightly bigger one.

This one appears to be a female, I think.

Males get very thick thumb pads.

[ Ribbiting ] [ Laughs ] This one's...

So, that's a defensive thing.

Obviously, this frog's trying to get me to put him down, and I will in just a second.

Okay, I tell you what, I just can't get enough catching bullfrogs.

As we can see, this pond is full of energy.

Lots going on here.

Lots of different types of animals.

But you know what, the only way you're gonna see stuff like this is if you get out in the field and enjoy what we have here in the Lowcountry.

Thanks for joining us on "Coastal Kingdom."

[ Ribbiting ] Let this guy go.

♪♪