- [Cameraman] Go for it.

(Hyatt sniffing) Actually, I'm gonna do a closeup.

- Hi, I have a bug in my nose, and it's raining.

(rain splattering) (upbeat music) Beep, beep.

I'm Hyatt Mamoun, and I'm a wildlife filmmaker who grew up here in the deep south, and I'm passionate about sharing the fun and excitement of our natural world.

(Hyatt giggling) Today, I'm taking y'all with me into the storm to explore the Lowcountry's powerful barrier islands and meet the critters that call this neighborhood home.

As you can see, now, this island is being eroded away, which is doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing.

Oh!

It's getting so close!

(laughs) Okay.

(laughs) (waves crashing) (gentle music) The ocean is an incredibly powerful force.

All of these trees have fallen.

The waves are rough, capable of creating massive waves and harboring huge storms.

(thunder rumbles) Here in the Lowcountry, barrier islands bear the brunt of this force and protect the mainland from absolute destruction.

(thunder rumbles) (pensive music) And today we're gonna go explore one, in a storm.

Good thing my boots are waterproof.

(vibrant music) (Hyatt laughs) Okay, we're here on Hunting Island, trekking across it to see what kinds of animals we can see.

And it's raining today.

You cannot expect every single day to be sunny.

The rain can be just as gorgeous.

(rain splattering) Oh, gosh.

It's definitely raining harder, okay.

The combination of rain, heat and humidity in a subtropical environment can pose some pretty big challenges to film, (rain splattering) like keeping the gear dry and lenses defogged and mosquitoes.

Lots and lots of mosquitoes.

As you can see, it gets extremely humid, extremely muggy.

The bugs, the mosquitoes, in particular, are going crazy.

(lively music) But mosquitoes do feed a lot of our critters, like dragonflies and cardinals.

They also feed one of the most charismatic and clumsy birds (bird squawking) in the whole entire Lowcountry.

(laughs) Swamp chickens, with their formal name, the Gallinula.

(lively music continues) (birds squawking continues) These goofy and entertaining birds are everywhere.

(birds squawking continues) Even when you can't see 'em, you sure can hear 'em.

(birds squawking continues) Some chickens are easy to spot with bright red shields on their foreheads and long toes for walking through mud and vegetation and also falling off of branches.

They can be seen picking through the marsh for tasty morsels like bugs and plants.

(lively music continues) Lots of flies, a lot of water.

Now I wish I had a swamp chicken with me to eat the bugs as I make my way out to an island that's at a very interesting point in its lifecycle.

Oh, water's totally coming up.

(water rushes) That's a spiderweb.

A lotta water.

Bink!

Boom!

(water rushing) We made it to little Hunting Island, which is being battered by the waves and the storm that we're in.

(thunder rumbles) Now, Hunting Island is parked right above Fripp Island.

It's part of the Sea Island chain, which stretches from north Florida all the way through South Carolina.

These are barrier islands, which make it possible for the Lowcountry marsh to exist by absorbing all of the energy that comes from winds, waves and hurricanes, which created where we are right now.

As you can see now, this island is being eroded away, which is doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing, protecting the interior.

Oh, oh!

It's getting so close, okay.

(laughs) If you look out, you can see sewage lines.

You can see tarp.

You can see cinder blocks from when people used to live here.

They used to live in houses on stilts, and eventually as time went on, they went eroded away, just as the island will eventually, but that's how life here works.

It's such an incredible experience to see the barrier islands in action like this with such a dynamic and ever-changing environment, it's amazing to see how life thrives after the storm.

(water rushing) Little mud crabs like this one like to jam themselves in any nook and cranny they can fit into during the storm.

(thunder rumbles) And when the rain finally clears and the sun peeks out, so do the mud crabs' cousins.

(lively fiddle music) Sand fiddler crabs get right to work, rolling up little balls of sand, separating food from sediment.

And, occasionally, the males, which you can tell they're males by their big 'ol claws, pause to beef with each other over territory, which they rarely follow through with, 'cause that'll end in both of them getting hurt.

So after their display of machismo, they end up going their own directions.

After spending some time drying off and binge-watching a crabby reality show, I finally peeled my eyes off the sand right in time to catch a pod of dolphins just passing by.

(energetic music) As we're looking for different animals, we came across something a little different.

Out here are some bottle-nose dolphins and bottle-nose dolphins in this area actually have shorter fins, which makes it easier for them to maneuver during the low tide.

(water rushes) They have a unique feeding technique called strand feeding.

And strand feeding is where they go along the shore looking for prey and actually chase all the fish up onto the shore, in that process, beaching themselves and then wiggling back into the water, successfully getting a lot of fish.

(water splashes) What an incredible find.

(water rushes) Barrier islands are an incredibly important part of the Lowcountry ecosystem.

With their fleeting existence, (bright music) you come to the realization that the beauty of the Lowcountry doesn't only lie in its plants and animals, but the land itself.

(bright music continues) I can't wait for what's next in this "Wild, Wild South."

(graphic scratches) (bright music continues) (engine revs)