There is something special about islands. I can’t remember a time when I did not love islands.

The first movie I ever saw that didn’t star Hopalong or Roy was “The Swiss Family Robinson.” And the first book I read that was thicker than my thumb was “Robinson Crusoe,” and “Treasure Island” was not far behind.

The first islands I got to explore firsthand were hummocks rising out of the Pearl River swamp on my grandfather’s farm near Philadelphia, Miss. The largest of these encompassed at least 15 acres of bottomland — big enough to accommodate a field of hay and the barn in which to stow it. And after every good rain, that hay field would sprout arrowheads, gifts to us young’uns from artisans long dead.

It was a magical place, a crossroads for game animals, migrating birds, fishermen and hunters, and sometimes a Choctaw would pass this way and kneel in the muddy ground just like we did, marveling at the earth that grew arrowheads long after their makers had abandoned them. Were those points offerings to the animal spirits, or were they discarded as flawed? To me, every one was a marvel.

After touring Fort Massachusetts on Ship Island and Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island at age 3 or so, I started to associate islands with forts. I was still too young or too dense to equate that hayfield of arrowheads with the massive fortifications favored by the European settlers. But it was all there right in front of me to discover — fresh water bubbled from an artesian spring and spilled into the swamp teeming with fish and game, nuts from hickory, pecans and chinquapins. Some years, my grandfather planted a few rows of corn and greens of several kinds for the critters that shared the island with us.

After I got my first pair of bird-worthy binoculars, I quickly realized forts on islands are no longer where they keep the guns, but they are almost always where you can find good birding.

My wife, Lin, and I have traced the outline of our continent, skipping from fort to refuge to fort to garbage dump to swamp and to the next fort. But we still keep returning to those first islands I explored as a boy. And no matter how far we travel away from the Gulf Coast, we return to the shores of Dauphin Island at least for spring and fall migrations. We’ve been coming for decades now.

The most hallowed ground on Dauphin Island is Shell Mound Park. At first, I thought the shell mound was just that — a big pile of oyster shells. But this pile of shells was a place to shelter from cold winters, a place to swap seeds and plants and stories with other tribes, and it was a burial ground. And I can’t help believing some of those folks just came to partake of a little bird watching while trading and gorging on oysters.

And on this island I finally realized my grandfather’s hayfield in the swamp was, indeed a fortress — no, that’s the wrong word — it was a sanctuary. And I imagine Native Americans of several bands visited there during the winters to swap with each other. Maybe they just wanted to get away from the rest of their family. Maybe my grandfather’s island was once a clubhouse with its own secret handshake. One thing is sure; they certainly had lots of arrowheads lying around.

We birders still come to bear witness to the miracle of migration. And we’ve watched the overall number of birds dwindle from a flood to a trickle.

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Islands out of time