If you pay attention to the natural world, the signs are all around us that summer will soon give way to fall.
Wildlife & Nature
Take a Birding Cruise Along White Oak
Local bird expert Joanne Powell will guide birding cruises along the White Oak River, and she says participants are almost guaranteed to see something special: birds, other wildlife or just stunning beauty.
Life at the Surf’s Edge
During this long holiday weekend, summer’s last hurrah, take a stroll on the beach at the water’s edge. There, look for the brightly colored coquina clams, the scurrying mole crabs and ghost crabs wetting their gills.
Turtle Tales
Young hands can touch a sea turtle shell and inquiring minds can learn about our coast’s most beloved sea creature at weekly programs at Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
Take a Drive to See Bears
The Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge offers guided drives this summer to view black bears. More bears live in the refuge than in just about any other place on the East Coast.
Atlantic Sturgeon: Is the Giant Making a Comeback?
The endangered sturgeon has been showing up in the James River in Richmond and one even spawned in the Roanoke River in North Carolina.
A Holiday Tradition That’s for the Birds
The National Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count begins this weekend on the N.C. coast. For more than 100 years, “citizen scientists” all over the country have scanned the skies counting birds and compiling invaluable data on hundreds of species.
Red Wolf Program Ends Its 25th Year
Twenty-five years after the first red wolves were released into the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, the success of the Red Wolf Recovery Program is intertwined in an uneasy relationship with the wolf’s close cousin, the coyote.
The Comeback of the Wild Turkey
On this Thanksgiving, its seems appropriate to consider the story of our native wild turkeys. Once very rare, they are now everywhere. These birds are at the center of one of the great conservation success stories in state history.
The Humpback of Emerald Isle
An early evening stroll for Sam Bland and Bright Walker brought an unexpected pleasure: a humpback whale cruising the shore, and a moment of community with all who experienced it.
Are the Horseshoe Crabs Telling Us Something?
An unusually high number of small horseshoe crabs started showing up in Stump Sound. That got a noted naturalist thinking about global warming, changing ecosystems and the powers of observation.
Sam’s Summer of the Hummingbirds
Sam Bland, our naturalist and photographer,found his life being taken over this summer documenting the lives of a mother hummingbird and her two chicks.
A Baby Boom of Turtles?
A record number of sea turtles have nested on some N.C. beaches this year, though experts think it’s too early to know whether the threatened animals have turned a corner.
The Life and Times of the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker
Sam Bland gets a ride-along with US Fish and Wildlife Service biologists as they locate and band endangered red-cockaded woodpecker chicks in the Croatan National Forest. Read more to find out how the birds are doing in their fight to survive.
The Call of the Wild
Gather in the woods of Dare County on Wednesday evenings and howl for red wolves. Better yet, listen as they howl back.
Now That’s a Jumbo Shrimp
The invasive tiger shrimp, which can be 13 inches long and weigh a quarter pound, may now be reproducing in N.C. waters. We may have to learn to love it.
