Suddenly the goats appear. They march slowly forward single file, their heads bent down, toward the tip of their private island near the Sunset Beach Bridge. Folks waiting in cars for the bridge gasp and reach for cameras. The goats are a mesmerizing surprise after days spent watching pelicans, gulls and waves.

The goats live on Goat Island, a dredge spoil island between Sunset Beach and the Intracoastal Waterway. They leave their safe haven in the center of the island to graze at the island's eastern end near the bridge.

A nearby mainland resident claims that he put the first goats on the island in the early 1980s. Others state that they came from ships that wrecked while transporting livestock. The goats have multiplied. Some migrated to nearby dredge spoil islands in both North Carolina and South Carolina.

John Frink of Sunset Beach took me by boat to Goat Island. We used two of my cameras to photograph the goats, first on the ICW side of their island. John deserves equal credit for these photos. Later we climbed uphill through shrubs and photographed them while we hid amidst brush. The goats stood near their fresh-water "lake," a low-lying area filled with rain-water.

The lake explains their survival. Goats need only fresh water and plant material to survive - the latter because they are herbivores, i.e., plant eaters.

Here are observations from that outing combined with information from the Internet.

Goats come in an array of colors, even mottled. They have long ears. Their tails point upward. A thick fur coat protects goats from cold. Both sexes have black horns, beards and udders. The goats with enlarged udders on Goat Island are females.

Males are called billy goats or bucks. Females are called does or nannies. Baby goats are kids.

Goats are in the cattle family and closely related to sheep -- whose tails point downward.

Throughout the day goats graze on plants. First they swallow their food after little chewing, next they regurgitate it, and then finally they chew it thoroughly before swallowing it again.

The most astonishing thing I learned is that, in comparison to humans who produce less than a liter of saliva daily, goats produce 100 to 150 liters of saliva each day. Their beards must be nasty.