I always like to hunt for birdies when I’m on the course, but today’s ornithological expedition is little different. Standing on the tee box of the 417-yard 14th hole of Old Tabby Links in the community of Spring Island, I’m not looking down the fairway but rather peering through a powerful tripod-mounted Swarovski spotting scope.
 
“Why do you think there aren’t any feathers on top of his head?” asks Spring Island’s resident naturalist Chris Marsh as I look at a turkey buzzard perched atop a bare tree. When my silent frown indicates ignorance, he informs me that evolution favored vultures with fewer feathers on their head that trapped less bacteria when they feasted on dead animals.
 
One of the things I enjoy most about a round of golf is being around nature, and getting to tour Old Tabby near Hilton Head Island, S.C., with Marsh is truly special because he points out so many nuances of nature that most of us are completely unaware of.
 
For instance, as I get ready to tee off on the 401-yard 10th, where I start my round, he picks up a small hickory tree twig that I didn’t even notice. He points out little notches on the bark made by a girdling beetle for its eggs. The beetle gets its name the girdle it forms around the twig, which eventually drops to the ground so the larva can complete their development.
 
The residents like to say Spring Island isn’t a community with a nature preserve, but rather a community in a nature preserve. Set amid a live oak maritime forest, the preserve comprises 1,200 of the islands’ 3,000 acres. In addition, there are 3,500 acres of marsh fed by the Chechessee and Colleton tidal rivers, which support numerous flora and fauna, including two pairs of bald eagles.
 
Taking its name from the 200-year-old remains of a grand manor house next to the rustic clubhouse, the 7,004-yard Old Tabby Links is one of Arnold Palmer’s best. The front nine is routed through the forest, while the first six holes of the back occupy former quail-hunting pastures.
 
Marsh points out a stand of pines to the right of the green on the 397-yard 11th, noting that they’re all the same size. “They were probably planted 17 years ago when the course was built,” he says. “Nature can tell you the history of a place if you know how to read the landscape.”
 
Old Tabby’s signature hole is the 205-yard 17th, which plays along the marsh on the right and Night Heron Pond on the left. In a scene straight out of Wild Kingdom, the eponymous bird shares his home with other fine-feathered friends like the wing-spreading anhinga, along with alligators and yellow belly slider turtles.
 
I spend a good 10 minutes looking through the scope at the various wildlife as Marsh points out one interesting tidbit after another, like that gators have to maintain a 70-degree ambient body temperature. In fact, we spend so much time examining different plants and animals that we have to cut the round short.
 
No matter. It’s still the most birdies I’ve ever had in a round.