{"id":219406,"date":"2025-09-23T08:57:03","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T12:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/?p=219406"},"modified":"2025-09-23T14:04:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T18:04:20","slug":"the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise","title":{"rendered":"The Birds Are Back in Town: How One South Carolina Community Turned Stormwater Ponds into an Avian Paradise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There ought to be a word for it, the experience of your favorite out-of-the-way spot\u2014a dive bar, a hidden pocket of urban greenery\u2014being discovered by the crowds. Which, inevitably, it will be. It was like that for me with Port Royal, South Carolina. When I lived nearby in Savannah, I liked to drop in for coffee and a stroll through Port Royal\u2019s central park: a sleepy wetlands preserve with a boardwalk, a few lazy alligators, an egret or two pecking through the muck. <\/p>\n\n\n

\"G&G<\/a><\/div>
G&G Weddings<\/span> Now Available!<\/span><\/div>
Get our special digital issue and celebrate the big day in Southern style<\/div>
Get Your Copy<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I moved from the area nearly five years ago, and it took me that long to return to Port Royal. This past June, I was driving past and decided to stretch my legs. Stepping out of the car, I noticed the difference immediately. The park was shockingly crowded. It was incredibly noisy. And, truth be told, it smelled awful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The birds had found it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herons, egrets, ibises, wood storks. Hundreds of them, weighing down every branch of every cypress tree growing on the islands in the middle of the water. On the boardwalk, spectators gawked at this feathered metropolis\u2014its residents squabbling in their nests, feeding their young, trying out their wings. I overheard a kid say to his mom: \u201cThat alligator is eating a bird!\u201d Sure enough, I looked to the far shore just in time to see a gator with its jaws open wide to accommodate one very unlucky anhinga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turned out I was witnessing the fruits of a long-term restoration project. In the early 2000s, the town of Port Royal decided to take a connected series of stormwater retention ponds and turn them into an avian refuge and a birders\u2019 paradise. It worked spectacularly\u2014it\u2019s just that it took a while. The initial phase of the Port Royal Cypress Wetlands and Rookery<\/a> was completed in 2010; by May 2013, a survey found a couple hundred birds there. But the space wasn\u2019t being actively managed. \u201cNatural features that man has put their fingerprint on, a lot of times, it\u2019s just like a house,\u201d says Dean Harrigal, a wildlife biologist involved in the project. In other words, it requires some upkeep.<\/p>

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
\"Water
Photo: Amber Hewitt <\/div>
Colonial wading birds crowd the boardwalk.<\/div><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The species here fall into the category of colonial nesting wading birds. To nest successfully, they need protection from mammalian predators\u2014the kind offered by, for instance, an island. The park\u2019s initial construction involved building islands in the wetlands. But over time, swamp loosestrife and other vegetation grew so thickly they essentially created a bridge on the water, \u201csuch that a raccoon can just walk right across it, then get up in the trees, and then it\u2019s just a smorgasbord for them,\u201d says Travis Folk, who works with Harrigal at the wildlife consultancy Folk Land Management. A May 2017 survey recorded only fifteen birds in the preserve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So in 2018, Port Royal reengaged Folk Land Management, whose founder\u2014Travis\u2019s father, Robert Folk\u2014was involved in the refuge\u2019s original design. Contractors returned to tear out unwanted foliage and add another island. The water was drained for the work to be conducted; when they added it back in 2021, results were swift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe reflooded it in January,\u201d Harrigal explains, \u201cand by mid-March we started seeing nesting activity.\u201d But 2025 was when it \u201creally exploded\u201d; a count this year found 800 nests on the twelve-acre property. (\u201cThat\u2019s why it was noisy and smelly,\u201d he adds.) In a recent report, Harrigal suggested the wetlands might be \u201cat or near carrying capacity.\u201d The first birds to nest at a given site will grab the prime terrain\u2014in this case, the islands. When Harrigal and his colleagues saw nesting activity spilling over to the opposite shoreline\u2014less attractive real estate, avianly speaking\u2014it indicated that room might be running low. Now Harrigal, who joined Folk Land after a long career with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, will oversee regular maintenance of the wetlands to keep them from getting overgrown again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Photo: Sam Worley<\/div>
A little blue heron chick.<\/div><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019ll occur mostly in fall and winter, when the birds aren\u2019t nesting. The best time to see them is spring and summer, especially between Easter and Memorial Day and particularly in the evening, says Scot Clark, president of the Friends of Port Royal Cypress Wetlands<\/a>. Formed in 2019, the group has installed interpretive signs along the trail and offers regular free tours with master naturalists. \u201cDuring the day, all the birds kind of scatter,\u201d Clark says. \u201cBut in the evening around dusk, they all start flying in\u2014just hundreds upon hundreds of birds that flock to the area for roosting overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"American
Photo: sam worley<\/div>
American white ibises.<\/div><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A couple months after my stop in Port Royal, I happened to visit another natural place I\u2019ve loved for a long time but hadn\u2019t seen in a while: a leafy glen in a town where I used to live in Southwest Ohio. Formerly, its centerpiece was a quiet creek that overspilled its banks during the rainy spring, but I returned to find that this occasional floodplain had become permanently flooded. Beavers had performed a gut rehab<\/a>, taking a tiny waterway and transforming it into a wide, green swamp.<\/p>

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
\"A
Photo: sam worley<\/div>
A pair of great egrets.<\/div><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Again I walked around in awe\u2014on new boardwalks, as the old trails are long gone, and in a place whose very dimensions I no longer recognized. I thought about solastalgia, a word coined by the philosopher Glenn Albrecht<\/a> to describe the sense of loss provoked by environmental change. Shorter winters, a childhood beach washed away by rising seas: Albrecht called solastalgia \u201cthe homesickness we feel while still at home.\u201d Here, though, and in Port Royal, I experienced something like solastalgia\u2019s opposite. I remembered that things can improve, even in just a few short years\u2014that some changes can make a home feel even more like itself.<\/p>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Port Royal Cypress Wetlands and Rookery is a stunning ecological success story<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":219409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-09-23T12:57:08Z","apple_news_api_id":"6cf127a7-7c98-4247-878c-23ab57bebd03","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-09-23T12:57:09Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AbPEnp3yYQkeHjCOrV769Aw","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406,1783],"tags":[29823,93,29612,309,30280],"authors":[30404],"issue":[],"recipe-type":[],"class_list":["post-219406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-land-conservation","category-sporting","tag-birds","tag-conservation","tag-outdoors","tag-south-carolina","tag-whats-new","authors-sam-worley"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Birds Are Back in Town: How One South Carolina Community Turned Stormwater Ponds into an Avian Paradise – Garden & Gun<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Port Royal Cypress Wetlands and Rookery is a stunning ecological success story\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Birds Are Back in Town: How One South Carolina Community Turned Stormwater Ponds into an Avian Paradise\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Port Royal Cypress Wetlands and Rookery is a stunning ecological success story\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Garden & Gun\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gardenandgun\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-23T12:57:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-23T18:04:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/DSC_0151-1600x1143.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1143\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gabriela Gomez-Misserian\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@gardenandgun\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@gardenandgun\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Gabriela Gomez-Misserian\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#\/schema\/person\/e6cca540eec31439cf98cf9427370a13\"},\"headline\":\"The Birds Are Back in Town: How One South Carolina Community Turned Stormwater Ponds into an Avian Paradise\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-23T12:57:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-23T18:04:20+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/\"},\"wordCount\":1000,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/DSC_0151.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Birds\",\"Conservation\",\"Outdoors\",\"South Carolina\",\"What's New\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Land & Conservation\",\"Sporting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/\",\"name\":\"The Birds Are Back in Town: How One South Carolina Community Turned Stormwater Ponds into an Avian Paradise – Garden & Gun\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/DSC_0151.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-23T12:57:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-23T18:04:20+00:00\",\"description\":\"The Port Royal Cypress Wetlands and Rookery is a stunning ecological success story\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/DSC_0151.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/DSC_0151.jpg\",\"width\":3000,\"height\":2143,\"caption\":\"Birds crowd the branches at the Port Royal Cypress Wetlands and Rookery.\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Birds Are Back in Town: How One South Carolina Community Turned Stormwater Ponds into an Avian Paradise\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/\",\"name\":\"Garden & Gun\",\"description\":\"Garden and Gun magazine celebrates the modern South and features the best in Southern food, style, travel, music, art, literature, and sporting culture.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Garden & Gun\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/19_08_GG_Email_Popup_logo.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/19_08_GG_Email_Popup_logo.jpg\",\"width\":166,\"height\":26,\"caption\":\"Garden & Gun\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gardenandgun\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/gardenandgun\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/gardenandgun\/\",\"https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/gardenandgun\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/Gardenandgun\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#\/schema\/person\/e6cca540eec31439cf98cf9427370a13\",\"name\":\"Gabriela Gomez-Misserian\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/df72c7dd1ad3bc62869a7fe0556dd0dbca001f49491ac08383a404b3aa30ab9a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/df72c7dd1ad3bc62869a7fe0556dd0dbca001f49491ac08383a404b3aa30ab9a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gabriela Gomez-Misserian\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Birds Are Back in Town: How One South Carolina Community Turned Stormwater Ponds into an Avian Paradise – Garden & Gun","description":"The Port Royal Cypress Wetlands and Rookery is a stunning ecological success story","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Birds Are Back in Town: How One South Carolina Community Turned Stormwater Ponds into an Avian Paradise","og_description":"The Port Royal Cypress Wetlands and Rookery is a stunning ecological success story","og_url":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/","og_site_name":"Garden & Gun","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gardenandgun","article_published_time":"2025-09-23T12:57:03+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-09-23T18:04:20+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1600,"height":1143,"url":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/DSC_0151-1600x1143.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Gabriela Gomez-Misserian","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@gardenandgun","twitter_site":"@gardenandgun","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/"},"author":{"name":"Gabriela Gomez-Misserian","@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#\/schema\/person\/e6cca540eec31439cf98cf9427370a13"},"headline":"The Birds Are Back in Town: How One South Carolina Community Turned Stormwater Ponds into an Avian Paradise","datePublished":"2025-09-23T12:57:03+00:00","dateModified":"2025-09-23T18:04:20+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/"},"wordCount":1000,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/DSC_0151.jpg","keywords":["Birds","Conservation","Outdoors","South Carolina","What's New"],"articleSection":["Land & Conservation","Sporting"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/","url":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/","name":"The Birds Are Back in Town: How One South Carolina Community Turned Stormwater Ponds into an Avian Paradise – Garden & Gun","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/DSC_0151.jpg","datePublished":"2025-09-23T12:57:03+00:00","dateModified":"2025-09-23T18:04:20+00:00","description":"The Port Royal Cypress Wetlands and Rookery is a stunning ecological success story","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/DSC_0151.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/DSC_0151.jpg","width":3000,"height":2143,"caption":"Birds crowd the branches at the Port Royal Cypress Wetlands and Rookery."},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/the-birds-are-back-in-town-how-one-south-carolina-community-turned-stormwater-ponds-into-an-avian-paradise\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Birds Are Back in Town: How One South Carolina Community Turned Stormwater Ponds into an Avian Paradise"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/","name":"Garden & Gun","description":"Garden and Gun magazine celebrates the modern South and features the best in Southern food, style, travel, music, art, literature, and sporting culture.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#organization","name":"Garden & Gun","url":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/19_08_GG_Email_Popup_logo.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/19_08_GG_Email_Popup_logo.jpg","width":166,"height":26,"caption":"Garden & Gun"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gardenandgun","https:\/\/x.com\/gardenandgun","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/gardenandgun\/","https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/gardenandgun\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/Gardenandgun"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#\/schema\/person\/e6cca540eec31439cf98cf9427370a13","name":"Gabriela Gomez-Misserian","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/df72c7dd1ad3bc62869a7fe0556dd0dbca001f49491ac08383a404b3aa30ab9a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/df72c7dd1ad3bc62869a7fe0556dd0dbca001f49491ac08383a404b3aa30ab9a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Gabriela Gomez-Misserian"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219406"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219514,"href":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219406\/revisions\/219514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219406"},{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=219406"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=219406"},{"taxonomy":"recipe-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/recipe-type?post=219406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}