Reprinted from the Ocracoke Observer

A public hearing on this year’s Ocracoke Village Tram service application will be held at 8:30 a.m. Friday in the Hyde County Services Center and the Ocracoke Community Center. 

The application runs from July 1 to June 30, 2025, and, as in the past, seeks half of the budgeted amount of $202,434.21 from the North Carolina Department of Transportation and the rest, $101,217, from the Ocracoke Occupancy Tax Board.

The Ocracoke Village Tram, which usually operates from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day, makes a continuous loop from the Silver Lake Ferry Terminal along Irvin Garrish Highway, down Lighthouse Road and along Back Road. 

A new stop at Ride The Wind Surf Shop was added this year, giving the loop 10 stops where riders can jump on and hop off. Tram operation is provided through Transportation LLC.

This application may be inspected in the government center, 30 Oyster Creek Road, Swan Quarter, from April 12-19.

Written comments should be directed to Hyde County Manager Kris Cahoon Noble at that address or via email, knoble@hydecountync.gov, before noon April 19.

This story is provided courtesy of the Ocracoke Observer, a newspaper covering Ocracoke island. Coastal Review partners with the Ocracoke Observer to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast.

Reprinted from Ocracoke Observer

Lighthouses are things that aren’t built anymore yet they are snapshots in time, David Hallac, superintendent, National Parks of Eastern North Carolina, said Thursday during the 200th birthday celebration of the Ocracoke Light Station.

“Their importance goes well beyond this picturesque scene here, where we sit in the shadow of the protection of a navigational icon and beautiful landscape,” he said.

The National Park Service owns the light station, and more than 500 visitors, islanders and dignitaries attended the celebration on the grounds of this iconic emblem of Ocracoke.

“This location is special as it’s embedded in the village and is part of the community,” Hallac said under a sunny sky with the crowd, seated and standing under decades-old live oak trees, buffeted by a breeze.

Hallac was among several who spoke about the lighthouse history and shared stories.

Alton Ballance, author of “Ocracokers” and whose family on Ocracoke stretches back to the 1700s, served as the master of ceremonies. He began with a pop quiz. Does anyone know who the president was when the lighthouse was built? After a bit of an awkward silence and some titters, he pronounced “James Monroe.” The audience was then off the hook for the rest of the ceremony.

While the National Park Service opens the base of the lighthouse in the afternoons, no one is allowed to climb up the spiral stairs.

But John Simpson, great-grandson of the second-to-last keeper, Joseph M. Burrus (1929 to 1946), recounted how he used to climb to the top to hang a Christmas wreath on it.

“It’s a great view,” he said. “One you won’t find anywhere else.”

Simpson wasn’t the only one. Philip Howard, who has been collecting stories and history on Ocracoke for most of his life, related a heretofore unknown tale of climbing to the top one night with a few friends.

“The first time I climbed up it was 1952 and I was 8 years old,” Howard said. “The next time I climbed it was in 1982 and it was illegal,” noting that he had researched the statute of limitations for criminal trespass on federal property which had long passed, drawing much laughter.

“It was midnight, a beautiful night with a waning moon and the light from the lighthouse were joined together to cast eerie shadows across the lawn,” he said.

Included in the group was a park ranger who had obtained a brass skeleton key that goes to the door of the lighthouse. Swearing to secrecy, he and his three friends crept silently along the wooden walkway so as not to awaken the keeper and his family.

The group climbed up the spiral staircase.

“But it doesn’t go to the top,” Howard said. “There’s a ladder that goes up to the lantern room through a trap door.”

When one of them opened the trap door, they all heard a loud  ‘Hoot, hoot, hoot!’” Howard said, flapping his arms and loudly hooting. “It was a barred owl guarding her nest,” he explained as the crowd laughed. The young man shut the door and the men scurried down and ran off.

They did not know that a windowpane had fallen out and an owl set up a nest next to the Fresnel lens.

As for the rest of the story, a few days later, the ranger casually noted to the keeper that he just noted a broken window. Howard reassured everyone that the owl was permitted to raise her hatchlings and the window was repaired after they had safely fledged.

Jami Lanier, deputy chief of cultural resources with the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, gave a narrative of the buildings.

She noted that the Ocracoke light is a secondary light because it is located more inshore rather than closer to the ocean as primary lighthouses are.

But it was critical to North Carolina as the only navigable inlet from 1828 to 1846 for goods coming out of and going to the United States.

Two-thirds of our exports passed through Ocracoke Inlet,” she said. “The Coast Guard owns the Fresnel light because it’s still an aid to navigation.”

“(Lighthouses) call to us not just across the water but across time,” said Bett Padgett, president of the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society.

Padgett also closed out the hour-long program, singing a song she composed for this event, “200 Years of Light.”

Trudy Austin, a 10th-generation Ocracoker and who lives across from the light station, read the names of the lighthouse keepers each for whom a bell would toll.

Lt. Cory Woods, supervisor of marine safety for the district that includes Ocracoke, recounted the U.S. Coast Guard’s long history and responsibilities in maintaining 400 lighthouses throughout the nation.

Randal Mathews, Ocracoke’s county commissioner, noted how the lighthouse has “weathered many storms, winds of changing times and witnessed the growth of this community in the shadows, which is that we can learn a valuable lesson afforded to resilience.”

Several times the Great Atlantic Storm of 1944, one of the most powerful hurricanes to ever strike the eastern United States, was mentioned because many islanders took refuge in the lighthouse during that event.

Scott Babinowich, chief of interpretation, education and visitor services, organized the event.

“I’m incredibly pleased with the turnout,” he said. “It’s humbling to see how many turned out, all the family connections.”

The base of the Ocracoke Lighthouse is open for viewing from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday to Friday.

The hour-long program can be viewed on the Facebook page of Outer Banks Forever, the nonprofit auxiliary organization for the Outer Banks National Seashore.

From 11-11:30 a.m. Monday to Thursday until May 25 on the lighthouse grounds, NPS rangers will talk about the details and history of the lighthouse and the keepers that kept the light burning.

Later this year, renovations will begin on the double keepers’ quarters, so-named because two families could live there duplex-style.

The rest of the complex will be renovated as well thanks to a $2 million federal appropriation.

The building will be refurbished back to as it was in 1823 as a visitor attraction and for park service staff housing.

The hunt was on for all kinds of birds on Ocracoke as dozens of avid birders fanned out on the island in late December for the annual Christmas Bird Count.

A red-breasted nuthatch was what Jeffrey Beane, Stephanie Horton and Lloyd Lewis were trying to find early in the morning as they strolled the village.

“It’s usually found in Hammock Hills,” said Beane, who is the collections manager for herpetology with North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh.

While Beane is a renowned expert in reptiles and amphibians, he also knows his birds, and a novice tagging along with him would learn a lot.

The call of a nuthatch emanating from Horton’s mobile phone brought an answering call from the live bird flitting among the shrubbery.

“Some would say that’s cheating,” Beane said about using recorded bird calls.

By 8 a.m. the three village birders had counted 30 species.

During the count, participants must identify the birds they see and also count the numbers of each species. Sometimes number counts can be easy for sparsely populated species such as the peregrine falcon or eastern phoebe, which will total fewer than 10 individuals for the entire count day.

But counting others can be quite challenging, especially for birds like the spunky yellow-rumped warbler much in abundance on the island from fall into early spring.

“We count the best we can,” Beane continued, noting that they count this species by the tens, “but it’s really just estimates.”

It’s even trickier with the thousands of double-crested cormorants that winter around Ocracoke.

“We count them by the 100,” Beane said, meaning they count one hundred in a long line and repeat over and over as they fly by. The highest report of this species was in 1990 when they counted about 120,000 cormorants, the highest number reported in the country.

“The bird people questioned that, but they hadn’t been down here,” Beane said. “They don’t know how many cormorants are here.”

This year, nearly 40,000 were reported.

Horton noted that not only do they count the birds they see, but they also count the species by their unique calls, chip notes and songs, known as birding by ear.

Beane, Horton and Lewis have participated in the Ocracoke count for many years with this being the 24th consecutive year for Lewis, who lives in Maryland.

“There wasn’t anyone doing the count on Ocracoke (before Vankevich and Bob Russell) started it),” Lewis said. “We stayed for the fellowship.”

On Dec. 31, when the Ocracoke count took place, the day began overcast and misty and later a thick fog rolled in.

Around the island community cemetery, Beane and Horton were hoping to spot a hermit thrush.

A brown thrasher was tallied in the meantime and Beane said that while these birds are pretty common elsewhere — it’s the state bird of Georgia — they’re not common on Ocracoke.

Fun fact: Many state birds are robins or bluebirds, Beane said. “Because they let school kids choose the birds and those are all they know.”

As one walks the village with Beane, Horton and Lewis, the three correct some misconceptions.

“Don’t call them ‘sea gulls,’” Lewis said about the ubiquitous water birds that are also seen thousands of miles inland.

“That was never a name for them,” Beane added. “They are just gulls.”

Same with that green, stringy stuff on the beach.

“It’s not ‘seaweed,” Lewis said. “It’s sea grass.”

Horton, who has been a birder for more than 30 years, reiterated what other birders say about the activity, “It’s fun to get out here and see what (the birds) are doing. Birding is a good way to get people thinking about conservation and nature.”

And that is the primary reason for the nationwide Christmas Bird Count.

Begun in 1900, it is the world’s longest-running citizen science wildlife census. It began in opposition to a tradition popular in the 19th century called Christmas “side hunts,” where people competed to see how many birds they could kill, regardless of whether they could be used for food.

American ornithologist Frank Chapman, founder of Bird-Lore, which became Audubon magazine, proposed counting birds on Christmas instead of killing them.

That year, 27 observers took part in the first count in 25 places in the United States and Canada, and this event, administered by the National Audubon Society, has grown substantially ever since.

Last year the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a lot of cancellations of counts out of safety concerns. The Ocracoke and Portsmouth counts ran with fewer than normal observers and safety measures implemented that included no new participants and a cancellation of the social “tally rally” get-together, as was the case again this year. Only 64 species were reported for Ocracoke and 57 for Portsmouth, both far lower than the average.

Nevertheless, despite the cancellations last year, 1,842 counts took place in the United States, 451 in Canada and 166 throughout Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands.

These counts are conducted between Dec. 14 to Jan. 5 and each count site is a 15-mile-wide circle.

Ocracoke’s count, started in 1981, is on one of the last two days of the year and alternates with the neighboring Portsmouth Island count, which began in 1988. Since its beginnings, 187 species have been counted on Ocracoke and 160 for Portsmouth.

Considered by some as the “Super Bowl of birding,” these offer an opportunity to be part of citizen science and help scientists understand trends in bird populations.

Horton, Beane and Lewis covered Ocracoke’s village area while other teams spread out from Ocracoke Inlet to Hatteras Inlet counting birds on the waters, the beaches, dunes, marshes and woods.

Ryan O’Neal, a duck hunting guide, reported pintail, bufflehead and redhead ducks on the Pamlico Sound.

A few residents participated and sent yard and neighborhood reports, including seven ruby-throated hummingbirds, a record for this count.

Perhaps in part to an increase in hummingbird feeders and/or more wintering insects because of climate change, some hummingbirds that normally winter in South Florida and Central America are spending the colder months on the Outer Banks, especially in the Buxton Woods area.

In the early morning, Janeen Vanhooke and Karen Rhodes, assigned to cover South Point Road, were delayed just beyond the road’s entrance as an American bittern nonchalantly hunted for worms that had appeared on the road from an early morning rain. The bittern was one of four that would be seen throughout the day and into dusk.

Matt Janson and Peter Vankevich entered the beach from South Point Road, or Ramp 72, and were greeted not only with thousands of double-crested cormorants flying by, but also an amazing number of northern gannets mostly flying south over the water close to the beach. Others were foraging, diving spectacularly into the water for fish. This flight lasted several hours, and later in the day many continued to be seen feeding offshore.

They were joined by Amy Thompson, Ocracoke’s biological science technician for the National Park Service. At the large salt flat at the South Point, she tallied 1,159 dunlin, a small shorebird with a drooping bill. This was the most she has counted in that area, but Thompson noted the absence of several shorebird species that could be seen this time of year.

The morning got better as along the intertidal zone a large number of red knots, 205, were feeding. In the middle of the island and especially the north end, many more knots were seen, for a count total of 516.

By mid-morning, when the fog rolled in, it was enough to temporarily suspend the Hatteras Inlet ferry service. The fog limited ocean views, obscuring possible flocks of black scoters and other sea ducks. Other than that, it was much of an impediment and its eerie aesthetics cast a memorable shroud over the island.

For Rhodes, her incentive to participate derives from her art.

“My joy of drawing and photographing birds has turned into a passion to actually learn about the species and their habits here on the island,” she said.

After finishing her assignment, she headed home to count the birds in her neighborhood and her favorite heron spot.

Islander Susse Wright has participated in the count every year since the 1980s. If not too windy, she kayaks along the sound side of the island. Conditions were favorable until the fog appeared. Among the birds she found were two American Oystercatchers and a flock of about 100 Red-winged Blackbirds.

Andy Hawkins of Yorktown, Virginia, shares an equal love of surf fishing and birding and is a seasonal volunteer at the National Park Service campground. He spent much of the day on the dunes and trudging through the grasses and cedars, finding a high number of Savannah sparrows.

“The Christmas Bird Count importance cannot be overstated,” he said. “As sea coasts are affected by global climate change, one year’s data tells little, but over many years trends can show. A good day of birding, for an important cause, on a very special island.”

Some of the other count highlights: At Springer’s Point, Matt Janson had 10 snow geese fly overhead and a Baltimore oriole. He also saw a banded Ipswich sparrow and a red knot with a green satellite tag.

Lee Kimball and Tucker Scully, part-time islanders who have been doing this count for more than 20 years, reported a pair of wood ducks in Island Creek, the slough across from the campground.

Throughout the day, endless lines of double-crested cormorants streamed by. The estimate of about 40,000 was no doubt far fewer than the actual number of this species who have been present in large numbers since October.

In the end, a total of 87 species were recorded on Dec. 31. A provision of the count includes birds not seen on the official day but seen on any three days on either side of count day. This is called “count week,” and four species were count-week birds including a bald eagle that has been seen regularly on the island since early fall.