“Maybe the wolf is in love with the moon, and each month it cries for a love, that it will never reach.”

Tiffani Zbikowski

Ever since humans have walked this earth, they have looked up into the night sky, in reverence and perplexity, at the stars, planets and also the moon. The silvery moon shines bright like a star, yet it doesn’t create its own light. It must give thanks to the sun for its radiant glow by reflecting light off of its sun-kissed face. This big hunk of rock is also denied the status of a planet since it orbits the Earth and not the sun.

The moon is, well, a moon, one of several (around 146) in our solar system. As the moon rises this Sunday, it will have so much going on that it may appear to be just showing off. Not only is it going to be full, but it will be super full, and it will also bring along an animal friend to be a full super wolf moon. Then, as it arcs across the celestial sky, it will perform a magic trick with a lunar eclipse. But wait; to bring more drama to this event, there will be blood. So, you will not want to miss out on this full super wolf blood lunar eclipse moon.

I’ll be out there looking, excited, waiting for the performance. I love the full moon and each month my inner werewolf takes me outside to watch it rise. Like an actor stepping onto a stage, the moon calls for your attention as it enters the horizon and begins to project its soft, warm glow. With all the sensationalism about Luna this month, lets breakdown what is really going on.

Every month we have a full moon as it orbits the Earth. The amount of sunlight on the face of the moon will slowly grow in phases due to the position of the moon to the sun as it orbits Earth. When the Earth is between the moon and the sun, the moon is tilted enough in its orbit for sunlight to completely illuminate the moon.

During a full moon, the moon is either above or below the shadow of the Earth. When the moon is directly between the sun and Earth, the face of the moon as seen from Earth does not receive any sunlight causing a dark or “new” moon.

Now what is so super about a supermoon? The term “supermoon” is a relatively new term that refers to when the moon is closest to the Earth during its monthly orbit and is also a full moon. Astronomically, this is called “perigee syzygy.” Since the moon is closer to Earth, it can appear to be bigger and brighter, thus, “super,” as compared to when it is farthest away from the Earth during its orbit. Some comparisons claim that the moon can look 30 percent brighter and 14 percent bigger. The size of the moon will look most exaggerated when it is just above the horizon and over an object such as a building. As it rises higher in the sky, it will appear more in size to what we always see.

Native American tribes, as well as other cultures, created names for each full moon that celebrated nature and the seasonal changes. During a time when wolves were much more numerous, their howl would punctuate the cold January air. Howling is a form of communication to locate pack members, intimidate rival packs and most importantly, locate a mate. Wolf breeding season starts in January and their howling becomes more urgent and obvious, leading to the January moon being called the “wolf moon.” At the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in eastern North Carolina, the opportunity to experience a real wolf moon still exists. The refuge is home to a small wild population of the endangered red wolf.

Emerging cultures throughout the world tried to make sense of celestial events, such as a lunar eclipse. The moon in particular invoked wonder but it also could summon fear. Stories, which became legends, were created to explain such unusual happenings.

The Inca of South America told the story of a giant jaguar that ate the moon. The Cherokee also have a legend about a hungry frog that swallows the moon. Some of the myths also try to rationalize why the moon turns a reddish, or “blood,” color during the eclipse. Natives of Brazil, the Ge, tell the story of the moon and sun fighting when a boy shoots the moon with an arrow, causing it to bleed red as its light slowly fades. A shaman then treats the wound and the moon recovers.

These imaginative stories are quite entertaining, but what is really happening is just as fascinating. A total eclipse of the moon occurs only during a full moon when the Earth is between the moon and sun. The moon, Earth and sun must be in alignment so that the moon passes through the shadow of the Earth created by the sun. This happens when the orbital path of both the moon and Earth meet during a full moon. The crimson color is caused by sunlight being refracted around and through the Earth’s atmosphere. Some colors are filtered out but the red and orange shades pass through and onto the surface of the moon.

The moon is a powerful presence in our lives, often without us even realizing it or at least taking it for granted. Here on the coast, it is most evident in the ebb and flow of the tides and must be contemplated by those that work, and play, on the water. The moon is thought by many to influence unsettling human behavior giving rise to the term “lunatic.” It features prominently in literature and song. The moon-infatuated poet William Wordsworth was definitely under its spell when he wrote “Strange Fits of Passion I Have Known.” And I can’t help but remember a popular song during my teenage years, “Dancing in the Moonlight,” by King Harvest.

The moon has inspired wonder and fear throughout the ages. So go outside and watch it glide into the sky, it will make you wonder but you have nothing to fear. Let’s hope for clear skies.

Jan. 20 Full Moon Timeline

• Moonrise: 5:02 p.m.
• Total Eclipse Begins: 11:41 p.m.
• Middle of Totality: 12:12 a.m.
• Total Eclipse Ends: 12:44 a.m.

Coastal Full Moon Events:

• Hammocks Beach State Park-Lunar Eclipse Night Hike
• Swansboro Super Moon Boat Cruise
• Cape Lookout National Seashore-Lunar Eclipse Viewing

“Hear the music, the thunder of the wings. Love the wild swan” — Robinson Jeffers, American poet

The warm, long golden days of summer are behind us, blown aside by the windy cold fronts bellowing out of the Arctic. Hitching a ride on these southbound frigid blasts of air are tundra swans. The silent hands on nature’s clock have activated the alarm. Urged on by instincts for eons, the swans have followed an invisible highway etched in the sky by previous generations.

These large white birds with a long elegant neck will sometimes cruise along at 50 miles per hour and as high as 5 miles up to reach their destination. Many things in nature are constant, yet, they represent a change.

As reliable as the sun rising out of the darkness and into a new day, each autumn the tundra swans return to the lakes and fields of northeastern North Carolina.

Also known as the whistling swan, explorer Meriwether Lewis designated them as such due to the sound its wings make while flying. The more formal name, tundra, indicates the location of its breeding grounds high in this Arctic habitat. Here, the swans nest and raise their young during the short warm summer before migrating close to 2,500 miles to the east coast.

From high in the sky, their destination stands out like the bull’s eye on a target. Lake Mattamuskeet, at close to 18 miles long and 5 miles wide, is an important way station for migratory waterfowl along the Atlantic Flyway.

As the swans begin to trickle in during November, the lake provides the perfect habitat for the birds to survive the winter and fatten up before the return trip in the spring. The 40,000-acre lake is shallow with an average depth of about two and a half feet. This is ideal for the swans to reach submerged vegetation with their long necks.

Managed as a National Wildlife Refuge, it also includes 2,600 acres of marsh impoundments that provide food and cover for the birds.

The expansive agricultural fields surrounding the refuge are also loaded with kernels of golden corn, littered by the harvester, which the swans will quickly scavenge.

As thousands of the swans converge on Lake Mattamuskeet, the National Wildlife Refuge and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission organize a daylong festival of activities to celebrate their arrival. Known as Swan Days, the event is held annually on the second Saturday in December, this year set for Dec. 8.

Events for the festival are staged out of the Mattamuskeet High School on U.S. 264 starting at 10 a.m. All parking for the event is at the high school and shuttles will transport participants for the activities conducted in the refuge, including the popular guided birding tram tours. Some activities will be in the refuge and some will take place at the school.

Free activities include birding tram tours, a lecture on the history of Lake Mattamuskeet, Sylvan Heights Bird Park display with live birds including a black swan, kids programs, decoy carving, “Lunch with the Guides” storytelling with tour guides and nature photography workshop. Additionally, there will be presentations offered on several topics such as the diversity of bird life around the lake, the Mattamuskeet Lodge renovation and Native American history as well as an exhibit by the North Carolina Estuarium on local plants and animals and vendors with arts, crafts and food.

Swans are a fixture in cultural lore throughout the world and have come to represent love, beauty, purity and grace. As they feed in the fields, marshes and on the lake, the chorus of their calling can be heard from great distances.

It is an enjoyable sound to hear, so much so that E.B. White wrote in his children’s book “Trumpet of the Swan,” that “There is nothing in all the world I like better than the trumpet of the swan.”

Swan Days isn’t the only wildlife-related festival going on during the second weekend in December.

Nearby, the encore edition of the Wings Over Water Wildlife Festival will be offering birding field trips at the Alligator River, Pea Island and Lake Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuges and Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The event was started in 1997 to inspire the public to visit and learn about the diversity of wildlife and their habitat within our National Wildlife Refuges.

Sponsored by the Coastal Wildlife Refuge Society as an annual fundraiser, the bulk of this event occurs in mid-October with more than 80 field trips venturing into six refuges.

Since many migratory bird species aren’t present during the October session, an encore session of 13 field trips is offered Dec. 7-9.

The field trips, led by expert trip leaders, will venture into the refuges to look for a variety of migratory waterfowl, song birds, shorebirds and birds of prey species.

Participants might see the American avocet, purple sandpiper, American white pelican, piping plover, peregrine falcon, snow geese, tundra swans and a variety of ducks.

Birds aren’t the only game in town though; the refuges are also home to black bear, red wolves, river otters, foxes and bobcats. Each year these animals are routinely sighted during the outings. Registration and a fee are required to attend these field trips.

These two events offer an extraordinary opportunity to get outdoors and connect, reconnect or continue your love affair with nature by observing some magnificent wildlife. It’s waiting for you, just go!

Learn More

• Swan Days Festival
• Wings Over Water Wildlife Festival

When I think of the coast, I think of the crashing ocean waves, the sandy beach and sea oats swaying in a soft sea breeze like a downy feather.

Sea oats are perhaps the most recognizable plants along our coast and a classic remembrance of a summer trip to the beach. Most people can easily identify sea oats and may also be able to identify a few of the coastal trees such as live oak, cedar and pine.

But there is an abundance of plant life along our coast that is of interest to not only the seasoned botanist but to the casual observer as well. Even though the native habitats of the coast have been fragmented by development we are fortunate that much has been preserved within the national seashores, state parks, wildlife refuges and reserves.

During my early days as a park ranger, I was guilty of not knowing the plants as well as I should. I was more interested in the animals with fur, feathers or scales that could run, fly or crawl. I eagerly learned more about the animals so that I could share the fascinating nuances of our wildlife to park visitors.

Over time, I slowly realized that the plants are just as intriguing as the wildlife. To help me identify plants, I relied on an old text book from my college botany class, “Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas.” A big tome of a book that took a while to weed through to key out a plant. Since I wanted to interpret the coastal plants, I needed a book that narrowed the focus to plants of the barrier islands.

While working at Fort Macon State Park in the late 1970s I received a copy of “Seacoast Plants of the Carolinas,” which was given to me by the author himself, Karl E. Graetz. Two state parks, Fort Macon and Hammocks Beach were used as research sites by Graetz to test the ability of different plant species to help stabilize the mobile sand dunes.

I earned my copy of the book by helping Graetz plant hundreds of plants and rubbing my fingers raw by stripping thousands of sea oats seeds off the stem. Graetz then germinated the seeds in a greenhouse and the following year we would plant them in areas of the sand dunes that were barren of plants.

While Graetz’s guide was a good source to learn some of the native plants it was primarily designed to assist beach home owners in landscaping their property to prevent the sand from blowing away.

First published in 1973 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and North Carolina Sea Grant, this guide recommended many species that were non-native, invasive and would not be recommended today since they compete with and displace the native species.

But this was the best coastal plant guide at that time and my copy was well used, it now sits in a bookcase, faded, water stained and dog-eared. I haven’t pulled it off the shelf in years.

Recently, the editor of Coastal Review Online, Mark Hibbs asked me to take a look at a new recently published guide on coastal plants and left a copy of it on my desk while I was out of the office.

When I returned, I glanced at the handsome cover of the book and saw a familiar title “Seacoast Plants of the Carolinas.” Reading the title, my mind immediately thought of my fingers wrapped in thick white athletic tape. This was the trick Graetz taught me years ago to protect my fingers while collecting the sea oat seeds.

After recognizing the need to update the popular Graetz seacoast plant guide, the North Carolina Sea Grant program spearheaded getting a new version published.

Dr. Paul Hosier, professor emeritus of botany at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, stepped forward to author the new guide. Together, the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and North Carolina Sea Grant provided the funding, editing and distribution of the book.

Long before he actually started writing the book, Hosier compiled a master list of plants from published botanical studies conducted along the North and South Carolina coasts. With the list in hand, he spent countless weekends hiking though all the habitat types of the barrier islands documenting and photographing the plants.

He trekked into the salt, brackish and freshwater marshes, ponds, dunes, shrub thickets, maritime forests and the beach strand. Many times he received wary curious looks from people as he meandered around, head down, looking for plants. With his camera in hand, Hosier went about the extraordinary task of photographing the plants in flower or in fruit with many of the plants featuring more than one image in the guide.

The beautiful color photography, I think, makes it an extremely helpful guide to easily identify the plants in the field. With 745 photographs depicting over 200 plants any green thumb should be able to stroll through the dunes and impress others with their botanical skills.

This exquisite book is more than just a list of plants; it goes into great detail discussing the environment and ecology of the barrier islands and how even ocean currents influence what plants grow where. It reveals how the different habitat types are formed and shaped through the influence of salt spray, temperature, wind, tides and weather. These limiting factors created the adaptations these plants need to survive in such a harsh environment.

As well as a guide with attractive photographs, this book has an amazingly thorough profile of each species listed. The plants are nicely organized in sections listing ferns, graminoids, herbs, vines, shrubs and trees.

Each plant profile lists the common and scientific name, range, habitat, when the plant is in flower or fruit, its wetland status and whether the plant is native or exotic. Each plant is given a thorough description so that if you can’t identify the plant by the photograph, then the details help confirm its identification.

The profile goes on to provide the environmental conditions, such as soil, water and sunlight needs, where the plant will thrive. The wildlife, ecological and human significance of each species is also discussed. Take the common frogfruit, deer like to eat it, it is the host plant for the phaon crescent butterfly and it offers a splash of color if planted along pathways.

The many tables and charts in the book take the guesswork out of how to decide what to plant where in the different plant habitats. In the wake of Hurricane Florence, there is even a table that suggests which shrubs and trees are more or less tolerant to wind conditions.

Truly a labor of love, Hosier has produced more than a guide to the plants of the barrier islands. Anyone that loves these islands with their smooth cordgrass marshes, little bluestem sand dunes and live oak maritime forests will surely benefit by having a copy of this guide on their bookshelf. The guide could also be used as a text book for academic applications in high schools and universities and would be useful to town planners of coastal communities.

While searching the islands for plants, usually in the heat of the day, Hosier would occasionally come across surprises that brought him great satisfaction. A few of the plants are rare and difficult to find. One such plant, seabeach knotweed, caused him to call out “there it is, there it is” when he stumbled across it at the foot of the sand dunes not far from the crashing waves. There were also a few letdowns. If he couldn’t get a good representative photograph of a plant in flower or fruit, it didn’t make the cut to be included in the book. Sorry devil’s walkingstick.

While talking to Hosier about his book, I asked “while cataloging the plants, did you have a favorite?”

His reply didn’t surprise me, “sea oats” he said without hesitation. “When seeing this plant in bloom, it can make my heart flutter and I know where I am.”

Hosier will be in Wilmington in November to make presentations at the Cape Fear Audubon Society monthly meeting 7 p.m. Nov. 12 in Halyburton Park as well as at the Extension Master Gardener Association 11 a.m. Nov. 19 in the New Hanover County Arboretum Auditorium at 6206 Oleander Drive.

Hosier will hold a booksigning in conjunction with Planet Ocean Series meeting 6:30 p.m. Nov. 13 at the Center for Marine Science on Marvin Moss Lane.

Hurricane Florence, we knew she was coming well in advance. After she blew off the coast of Africa on Aug. 30 advanced hurricane tracking and forecasting technology provided all of the information necessary to keep my anxiety just below the berserk level as she reached “Cat4cane” status on Sept. 5.

Two days later, the storm had lost steam and downgraded into a tropical storm where it quickly left my consciousness. A few days later, she was back as a Category 1 storm that quickly blew up into a Category 4 hellion with winds howling at 140 miles per hour.

With the speed of a slow turtle, she made her way across the Atlantic, her steady approach aimed at the Carolina coast. Sept. 10 through Sept. 12 were worrisome days as she maintained her clout as a Category 4 tempest.

While pondering the idea of evacuating, the song by the Clash, “Should I Stay or Should I Go” became an earworm in my head. Everyone prepared as best they could, and many evacuated the barrier islands and immediate coast. It felt like the Kraken was going to rise out of the ocean.

On the late afternoon of Wednesday, Sept. 12, I had completed all of the tasks that my wife implored me to do, and I decided to go for a bike ride on the deserted roads of Bogue Banks.

In what remained of a beautiful day, I rode down the streets surrounded by a quiet stillness, the “lull before the storm” as they say. I stopped near the Point at the west end of Emerald Isle and took a long look at my little slice of paradise knowing that hurricanes come with the territory if you want to live on the coast.

I took a few cell phone pictures of the lumpy sand dunes as a remembrance in case it would all get washed away. As I approached my house, I heard the loud hooting of a couple great horned owls. It swept away my anxiety and left me with a peacefulness I find hard to describe.

Later that night, after weather forecasts predicted a downgraded Category 1 storm making landfall, my wife and I decided to stay at our home and ride out the storm like we had so many other hurricanes.

Early the next morning, I went out to the beach and took a few photos of the imposing waves. As they crested, the strong north wind sheared off a plume of sea spray that looked like the flowing mane of a galloping horse. Magnificent waves, spilling with beauty, displayed the strength of Florence and the anxiety crept back in with a sense of dread.

I ran back home to beat the town-imposed curfew, closed the doors and waited. The conditions gradually deteriorated throughout the day with the power failing around 4 in the afternoon. As the day grew dark, everything going on outside was magnified. My wife and I sat through the night as Florence stalled with the eye wall grinding away just offshore of the barrier islands.

The rattling of one particular hurricane shutter became my gauge for the intensity of the storm. We tried to sleep, but that silent dark curtain would not fall. We distracted ourselves by perusing the internet on our cell phones and listening to weather reports on an ancient battery powered television.

As the gray morning light began to arrive, so did the reports and images of hurricane destruction on social media sites. Houses, businesses and roads flooded, roofs ripped off, boats sunk and everywhere, trees snapped and shredded.

Even though Florence was still churning away, the storm surge that she had already launched earlier as a more powerful storm was now flooding the sounds, tidal creeks and coastal rivers. Swansboro, Salter Path, the Down East communities of Carteret County and New Bern took the brunt of the storm. Utter devastation for some, lives changed forever.

And then the rains came, as Flo was reluctant to take her leave, drenching the coast and inland areas for three days. Monumental rainfall now surged into the rivers, creeks, ditches and low spots spilling over and filling areas that have never flooded before. Desperation for those that had to flee, leaving most of what they owned and part of their lives behind.

Hurricane Florence had left behind quite a mess in her wake. Not just the physical destruction, but she wounded our psyche as well. As I talked to people, I could see the hurt in their eyes and many were just one extra straw on the camel’s back from losing it. They were walking a tightrope between hope and despair and not sure on which side they would land.

Even with the rain still falling, people began to try to put their lives back together and resume a sense of normality. For some it was a simple task of raking leaves off of a lawn. For others, it was abandoning their house or placing their entire, flood-soaked possessions at the curb of the street. Beds, stoves, refrigerators, desks, dressers, couches, chairs, drywall and insulation created mountains of human detritus. Many people had just lost more than their home; some had lost their business or their job. Life as they knew it would need to find a new normal.

The days following the storm brought out the best in people. Family, friends, neighbors and strangers were helping one another, as best they could, get through this tragedy. When they weren’t cleaning yards, repairing roofs or preparing hot meals for others, they were there to listen, to hug and offer a shoulder to cry on.

Among all the human suffering, the storm was also fatal for all kinds of wildlife. Seabirds called shearwaters littered the beach in the aftermath.

We were able to rescue a few live animals and get them to a wildlife shelter: a shearwater and a crazy looking freshwater salamander called a siren.

A little over a week after the storm, my wife suggested that we go to the Bogue Inlet Pier and watch the moon rise over the ocean. Even though Flo gave it her best shot, most of the pier was still standing. Two sections were washed out, but 400 feet of the fishing platform reached out into the Atlantic from the pier house. Though battered and dinged, the pier had already reopened. The defiant pier reminded me of the scene in the movie “Forrest Gump” where Lt. Dan screams into a hurricane “you call this a storm?”

Built in 1957, the pier has been around almost as long as the town of Emerald Isle. It has battled many a storm with only hurricanes Diane in 1984, Fran in 1996 and Irene in 2011 knocking it to the canvas. But each time the pier was repaired and remains the iconic landmark of Emerald Isle.

In my teens, my brothers and I spent quite a few evenings fishing or just hanging out at the pier. It’s more than a fishing pier; it’s an introduction to the ocean. People from all over the nation make their way down this pier. Here, grandparents teaching their grandkids to fish, mingle with the sightseers. Those not even interested in fishing can’t resist a stroll down the thick wooden planks. Tourists, quickly licking their ice cream cones in the warm summer air, parade to the observation deck, as the scent of perfume drifts in the air.

On the beach west of the pier, I walked down about a quarter mile to take photographs of the moon rising over the pier as I had done many times before. I wanted to capture the moon near the damaged part of the pier as a poignant reminder of the power of nature. I set up my tripod and took a few frames and stood back taking in the scene. The ocean, moon and waves created a restoring sense of balance from the chaotic experience of the storm.

Excitedly, my wife says, “pelicans are coming.” The birds were already upon us and I only had time to reach for the shutter release cable and take two images without framing the birds in the viewfinder. We then went onto the pier and walked down to the end where the first section had been ripped away. To those fishing, it was as if the storm never happened. They whipped their rods, flinging the lead weight along with the bait into the night followed by a splash.

We went home and I downloaded the moon rise pictures. One image with the pelicans stood out, I looked at it for a while on the computer screen. It captivated me and gave me the same sense of calm that I had felt on the beach before the storm. I posted the image on Facebook with the comment: “This full Harvest Moon is a sign of the changing seasons and it also represents a big change in the lives of so many people. I’m sure that everyone knows someone who has lost little and someone who has lost everything. But what I have witnessed is that there is a resiliency of the human spirit that will always rise like a full moon, big and bright. “

I didn’t think much about it until I checked the site a few hours later and was surprised with the responses. With all that people had been through it seemed to strike a chord with folks. One comment read: “Repairable, but a visual reminder that there is a sense of “brokenness” for many right now.” Another: “And beauty peeks her head back out after the storm to remind us why we live here and to give us hope.”

There were also numerous comments about the pier that others shared expressing their love, affection and emotional attachment to the pier. I realized it is more than just a pier, it is special memories that people hold dear such as memorial services, weddings, fireworks and young love.

Yes, we have been beat down by Hurricane Florence, and for a while, our emotions will continue flow like the tides, with highs and lows.

I will continue to return to the pier when the full moon rises, sit out over the ocean, breathe in the salt air and feel the pulse of the ocean roll through its pilings. I will watch the pelicans glide over the glassy waves and feel the power and beauty of the coast and know that our love for it will never be stolen by a hurricane.

PINE KNOLL SHORES — I guided my kayak down the wooden launch rails and into the shallow marsh waters at a dock behind the North Carolina Aquarium. As I stepped into the water, a small blue crab scurried away and quickly disappeared into the soft organic soil.

Nearby, a sea squirt attached to a dock piling and spit a stream of salty water in my direction. I settled into my kayak and set out in pursuit of two kayaks off in the distance heading west. With steady strokes, the blades of the paddle bit the water and pulled me nicely along.

As I glided past the suspicious eyes of royal terns and gulls roosting on an exposed grey sandbar, a laughing gull let a call with the drama of a steaming tea kettle whistle. I was quickly gaining on the paddlers ahead of me as they were not paddling with urgency, but rather with more deliberation.

Dr. Craig Harms, veterinarian and director of the Marine Health Program at North Carolina State’s Center for Marine Sciences and Technology in Morehead City, laid his paddle on the kayak rails and leaned forward staring into the screen of a smartphone. After a few seconds, he sat up, grabbed his paddle, spoke a few words to his companion and adjusted the course of their boats.

Alongside Harms, the other kayaker, Jason Eller, frequently raised a pair of binoculars and slowly scanned the surface of the water looking toward the shore about a hundred yards away. This navigator and spotter team was following a predetermined route in search of the only type of turtle that exists solely in the estuarine waters of North America, the diamondback terrapin. The men were participating in a citizen-science program that documents the location and abundance of this jewel of the marsh.

Mellissa Dionesotes, coastal wildlife technician with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, was also in the water, paddling east in her quest to find terrapins. She is charged with managing this program to get a handle on the health of this species in North Carolina. The program started five years ago with the help of the North Carolina Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve with 10 survey routes around Masonboro Island near Wilmington.

“The diamondback terrapin is a unique reptile that fills an important niche within our estuarine environment. It is vital that we understand its population density and distribution throughout North Carolina” said Dionesotes. “This monitoring project utilizes citizen science to answer these questions while engaging the local community in its conservation.”

This spring, two new routes were added in the marsh behind the aquarium when Carol Price, conservation research coordinator at the aquarium, partnered with the Wildlife Resources Commission to expand the research project.

“The aquarium wants to support protection of and promote appreciation for this beautiful at risk rare estuarine turtle,” said Price, who helped establish the search routes and put out the word to recruit enthusiastic kayakers with a keen eye.

The diamondback terrapin swims the brackish waters from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, along the East Coast to Florida and along the Gulf Coast to Texas. Named for the markings on the carapace, or hard upper portion of its shell, it has the most striking color of any turtle. The light grey skin color is painted with a unique pattern of black spots, lines, splotches and dots.

In contrast to their larger sea turtle cousins, these terrapins are small with the males having a 6-inch shell and the females reaching 10 inches. There are seven subspecies of the terrapin with two, the Northern and Carolina, occurring in North Carolina.

The diamondback terrapin is well adapted for its salty aquatic life. Unlike sea turtles, they don’t have flippers, but are still powerful swimmers utilizing their webbed feet, which can be pulled inside their shell. These terrapins can tolerate a wide range of salinity from almost fresh to ocean water. Their skin is capable of preventing the intrusion of salt and when salt does enter their bodies, it is removed by salt glands with little loss of water.

During periods of heavy rain, diamondbacks are also known to drink the freshwater that collects on the surface of the saltwater. At times they will even stick their head above the surface of the water and open their mouth in hopes of gulping a few raindrops. When salinity levels are high, they refrain from drinking until they can find lower levels.

Terrapins are vital to the health of the lush green gardens of smooth saltmarsh cordgrass throughout the estuary. Large colonies of periwinkle snails that live and feed among the grass can spread a fungal disease leading to bare patches of mud. Terrapins gobble up periwinkles like candy. Without terrapins, the periwinkle populations explode, resulting in the loss of valuable saltmarsh habitat.

Known as the “wind turtle,” the terrapins were once thought to possess supernatural abilities. Fishermen feared capturing a terrapin in their nets, believing it would then summon the storms to blow a gale.

Bones and shells of the terrapin have been found in Native American burial sites indicating that it is considered a sacred animal. Healers carried pieces of the shell in their pouches. Their culture includes fantastic stories about the “trickster” antics of the terrapin. Even though Native Americans held the terrapin in high regard, they also ate them.

Terrapin is an Algonquian word meaning little, edible turtle. Shells and bones of terrapins have been found in midden piles all along the Atlantic coast. Early Colonists learned from the natives that the terrapin was an important source of food. During the 1700s, terrapins were so plentiful and cheap that they were the dominant food that coastal plantation owners fed their slaves and servants. In Maryland, past records indicate that the monotony of eating terrapin day after day led to a law that restricted how often terrapin could be served.

During the mid-1800s, the humble food once fit only for slaves was now the food bon vivant of the elite. What was once considered trash fouling the nets of fishermen was now fetching high prices at the market. Terrapin soup and stew was the gastronomic hit at any celebration or wedding and was the food of presidents. Terrapins were being harvested by the thousands, by any means possible. Dogs were trained to sniff them out as the females came ashore to lay their eggs.

With demand high, terrapin populations began to tumble, threatening this important fishery. In 1902, the newly established Federal Fisheries Laboratory in Beaufort was tasked with raising diamondback terrapins to supplement wild populations. From 1909 until 1940, raising and releasing terrapins was the primary mission of the lab. However, during this time two events that rocked the nation played an important role in the future of the terrapin. Prohibition of alcohol from 1920-1933 eliminated a key ingredient from terrapin dishes. Without the amber-colored wine known as sherry, the now teetotaling soups and stews became passé. Then with money scares during the Great Depression this ritzy fare was too extravagant. Terrapins were still harvested, but the heyday of terrapin on the menu had passed.

Enough terrapins evaded the stew pot to keep the species swimming. However, the peril they face today presents a serious threat to their survival. Loss of salt marsh habitat, boat strikes, pet trade, road kill of nesting females, hardened shorelines, jewelry, the meat trade and entrapment in crab pots have contributed to declining populations.

Attracted to bait in crab pots, a terrapin will become trapped in the cage. Even though they can hold their breath from 45 minutes to a few hours, if the pot isn’t pulled to the surface in time, they will drown. They are especially vulnerable to “ghost” or abandoned crab pots that, if not removed from the water, will kill over and over.

Only four of 16 states within the range of the terrapin require fishermen to use a bycatch-reduction device on their crab traps. These devices prevent the larger terrapins from entering the traps while still catching crabs. Popularity of the devices isn’t overwhelming, despite studies that indicate 70 percent of terrapins are unable to enter the traps, while the crabs can easily enter.

In North Carolina, the terrapin is listed as a species of special concern by the state and federal governments while the World Conservation Union listed it as a threatened species. Although listed as a priority species in the North Carolina Wildlife Action Plan, a guide for wildlife conservation, little funding is allocated for comprehensive research on the lowly terrapin. This is why the collaboration between the Wildlife Resources Commission, North Carolina Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve, North Carolina Aquariums and citizen volunteers is so important. Terrapins exhibit site fidelity, meaning that they are frequently found in the same areas or “hot spots.”

Dionesotes said she hopes to continue expanding the volunteer survey across the state and wants to hear from kayakers, boaters and fishermen on where terrapins are being seen.

As I paddled alongside Harms, I asked why he felt compelled to spend his time searching for terrapins.  “If you have seen them, you want to participate in protecting this neglected, almost sea turtle,” he said.

To participate in the terrapin survey project or report terrapin sightings contact Dionesotes at mellissa.dionesotes@ncwildlife.org.

EMERALD ISLE – Near the shoreline of Bogue Inlet at the western end of Bogue Banks, the open sandy beach is decorated with small lumpy dunes and patches of shaggy grasses.

The gritty sound of the blades of my post hole diggers biting into the sandy soil is answered by the groan of oil-thirsty hinges as I pull the handles apart. A loose clump of sand is captured by my diggers and added to a small pile on the beach as the hole gets deeper.

Around me, people are placing posts with signs into the holes that I’ve dug while others are pulling a thick string between the posts and tying on bright orange flagging tape. As we work, curious beach strollers casually walk over and ask “what are you doing,” while overhead, the alarm of irritated shorebirds fills the air.

Each spring, all along the coastal sandy barrier islands, estuary islands and dredge spoil islands of North Carolina, thousands of shorebirds of several different species have arrived to breed and nest. Instinctually drawn to these critical habitats, they begin an arduous journey of survival. As the warm spring temperatures begin to climb, these same habitats also attract hundreds of thousands of beachgoers, boaters and anglers.

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is tasked with protecting shorebird nesting areas where birds nest in large groups, or colonies. But for these birds to thrive, they need our help, just simple actions that can keep these birds flying for generations to come.

To participate in the shorebird stewardship program, contact Diane Midness at dmidness@gnail.com.

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BEAUFORT — They have gone now. They have vamoosed, skedaddled, cleared out and hit the road. There will no longer be a daily vigil to check on their whereabouts in the open grasslands that lay fallow or among the dry stubble of corn stalks in the fields near town.

A large gray bird of modest plumage, stained with rusty streaks along its back, had delighted birders that flocked to see this rare visitor.

A pair of sandhill cranes took a detour during their fall migration to the wintering grounds in Florida and decided to linger a bit in coastal North Carolina. There are three subspecies of this gangly bird: the greater, lesser and Canadian, that migrate and breed in North America, Canada and parts of Siberia. Three other subspecies, the Cuban, Florida and Mississippi, are more sedentary and do not migrate.

In North America, some of the migratory populations utilize a number of different flyways. It appears that this particular pair of greater sandhill cranes started their migration from the Great Lakes region of the U.S. and Canada heading to their southern wintering grounds. Along the way, whatever possessed them to do so; they decided to take a hard left turn about midway down the Eastern Flyway to see what the East Coast had to offer. By mid-December, they found the bounty of the Crystal Coast to their liking, most likely the corn waste scattered on recently harvested fields.

I was one those avian spectators that sought out the birds after news of their arrival spread. Many trips to Beaufort resulted in disappointment as these conspicuous birds eluded my scant surveillance. A bird this big should be easy to find. At almost 4 feet tall with a 7-foot wingspan and weighing in at 10 pounds, finding one of these relics should be easy. Thought to be one of the oldest birds in existence, unearthed fossils of these birds are close to 10 million years old.

On one of my scouting trips to find the birds, I scanned an open field with my binoculars seeing nothing but protruding corn stalks cut low to the ground by the harvester. I lowered the glasses and stared out into the field when my eye caught some movement in a ditch separating the fields. There in the ditch, I saw three heads at the end of long necks peering over the ditch bank. Lifting the binoculars, I focused in on one of the heads only to see the familiar face of a great blue heron.

Unhopeful, I swiveled to view the other two birds when the white cheek patch and bright red forehead of a sandhill crane came into view. There they were down in a ditch cavorting with a great blue heron. The cranes made their way out of the ditch, leaving the heron behind, and began scouring the field for bits of corn and insects. I suspect they were in the ditch looking for frogs.

I watched the birds for a just a while, their long legs, long necks and sturdy bodies moved with an elegance and grace I thought not possible. That was until one of them half jumped, half flew over the ditch with a spastic motion, yet landed delicately with a flick of its head as if to say, “I nailed it.” These two stuck close together, obviously a mated pair that will stay together for life. Even though I was a ways off, the pair were alert to my presence so I moved on allowing them to forage undisturbed.

Paula Gillikin, central sites manager for the North Carolina Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve, is quite familiar with this pair of winter wanderers. She has been documenting their visits to the Beaufort area since 2013. While the pair spends their days in the farm fields looking for food, they seek refuge at night at the nearby Rachel Carson Reserve, a site that Gillikin manages that is only two and a half miles away, as the crane flies, from the feeding sites.

The shallow open tidal flats on the south side of the reserve are a perfect roosting spot for the birds. Here their vision is unobstructed and any predator, such as a coyote, would be reluctant to enter the water. If threatened, these avian giants will not back down. They will stand tall, open their enormous wings and hiss as if they are possessed. If the confrontation turns physical, they will throw out some damaging kicks that would leave any martial arts instructor impressed.

Gillikin is fascinated with how predictable and habitual the birds are with their annual arrival and departure as well as their daily routine.

“Each day, around sunrise and sunset, they follow the same flight path over Gordon Street to reach the reserve,” Gillikin said. She has watched their movement within the reserve as well with her remote camera, catching images of them strolling among the wild horses on part of the reserve called Town Marsh.

Soon after they arrived in Beaufort, local birding enthusiast Marty Wall saw them flying early in the morning over Broad Street in the middle of town. Wall observed them 21 times in the Beaufort area; the most memorable when he witnessed them perform their elaborate mating dance as they called to each other. In an email he stated, “To see such large birds hopping up and down, flapping their wings, and singing loudly was a real treat.”

The pair is now obviously returning to their northern nesting grounds. To conserve energy, they will soar high in the sky, at times reaching up to 12,000 feet, taking advantage of strong thermal winds if they are in their favor. A benevolent breeze can help them cruise up to 50 miles an hour and cover 150-400 miles in a day. During migration, especially the spring return, they need to fuel up to replenish fat reserves.

One of the greatest spectacles of animal migration occurs each spring when sandhill cranes stream northward following the Central Flyway. Half a million of these birds will rendezvous in controlled chaos along a 70-mile stretch of the Platte River in the plains of Nebraska. Here they will add on two pounds, fattening up on field corn and invertebrates found in the marshes along the river.

After about four weeks of gorging, they will continue on to their northern breeding grounds. This stopover is so important, it has been designated as an Important Bird Area of Global Significance.

Sandhill cranes, as well as other species of cranes, have been prominently portrayed in cultures throughout the world. They have been symbols of good luck, vanity, loyalty, longevity and good fishing. The shape of a crane is arguably the most popular shape used in the Japanese art of origami. The Greek storyteller Aesop used the crane in a number of his moral-laced fables. One such fable, tells the story of a wolf that rewarded a crane by not eating it after the crane removed a bone from the throat of the choking wolf.

Annual sightings of these cranes in North Carolina are becoming more formal. Along with the Beaufort pair, three sandhills spent the winter in the Pungo Unit of the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. A group of four of the birds made the Swansboro area their winter home in 2007-09. In 2015, a pair hung out in the parking lot of a Bojangles restaurant in Sanford for four weeks during the spring migration.

Sandhill cranes are numerous, and some populations are increasing, although the non-migratory populations are diminished by loss of habitat. But it was not that long ago that overhunting and loss of wetland habitat had this species heading to extinction.

Sandhill cranes were once so imperiled that the great conservationist Aldo Leopold stated “the last crane will trumpet his farewell and spiral skyward …” Protection by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act along with the preservation and restoration of wetlands within their traditional range has been critical to their recovery and survival.

Sandhill cranes are well known for their call, often described as a trumpet or bugle, which can be heard for more than a mile. It is a call of the wild and a call for wilderness.

“When we hear his call we hear no mere bird. We hear the trumpet in the orchestra of evolution. He is the symbol of our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of millennia which underlies and conditions the daily affairs of birds and men.”

— “Marshland Elegy” by Aldo Leopold

During my many years as a park ranger at Hammocks Beach State Park, I was fortunate to patrol the pristine beaches of Bear Island on an almost daily basis.

After piloting a boat across the fickle waters of the sound to this remote Island, I would hop into a truck of questionable reliability and head toward the beach. Driving down a narrow path through the dunes, the vegetation was a stubble of stunted wax myrtle, yaupon and live oak as I neared the ocean. Struggling up the primary dune, the truck sputtered along as I crested the dune and made my way onto the beach.

At low tide, the beach would be as wide and flat as an airport runway. So much so that the last private owner of the island, Dr. William Sharpe, described the beach in his book, “Brain Surgeon,” as “a four mile stretch of Atlantic Beach, wide, level, and firm enough to permit the landing of airplanes-another Daytona.”

At high tide, the beach would be a narrow strip of dry, fluffy white sand. Each ebb and flow of the tidal waters deposited wrack along the shoreline. Wrack is all of the debris, natural or man-made, that washes in each day from the ocean. The debris that accumulates at the height of the last high tide is known as the wrack line.

This is where all of the seashell hounds stroll, intoxicated by the salt spray, looking for a complete scotch bonnet, sand dollar or lettered olive.

During these beach patrols, all of the park rangers patrolled the wrack line as well, but we were not looking for seashells, well, maybe sometimes. We were scouring the beach to pick up all of the trash and other human detritus that washed ashore. All too often, among the glass and plastic bottles, we would find colorful balloons with a long tale of ribbons attached. Sadly, at times, we would find a dead animal, usually a bird, tangled in the trailing streamers.

For some reason, we celebrate sporting events, business openings, weddings, festivals and even funerals by releasing hundreds, sometimes thousands, of balloons into the air.

Whether released intentionally or not, once a balloon sails up into the atmosphere, they will expand and burst, falling back to earth and onto our lands and into our oceans. This trash is now a potential landmine that can harm, maim and kill wildlife.

All types of balloons, latex, mylar or plastic, once they return to earth, either whole or in pieces, is mistaken by wildlife as a source of food. Out in our oceans, whales, dolphins and sea turtles are enticed by these discarded party favors.

Some species of sea turtles are especially vulnerable as a floating balloon mimics one of their favorite foods, jellyfish. Once balloons or its pieces are ingested, they block the digestive tract causing the animal to eventually starve to death.

The long decorative tether ribbon that usually accompanies the balloon acts like a snare that can entangle birds and other wildlife, restricting their ability to fly or move and thus, their chances for survival.

As a young child, Lisa Rider learned about these dangers as a volunteer at the Outer Banks Wildlife Shelter. She was shocked to discover the amount of wildlife being harmed by this type of marine debris and decided to take action. This put her on a passionate quest to remove and reduce the amount of marine debris awash in our oceans.

For more than 25 years, Rider has been involved with various organizations cleaning our waterways and shoreline of marine debris. Rider created and implements the Marine Debris Symposium to create a partnership of organizations dedicated to reducing and eliminating all types of debris.

“When we have the knowledge of how marine litter impacts us, we can then focus on the consumer decisions that prevent it,” said Rider. “Voting with our wallet allows us the control of how we, as individuals, can do our part. By choosing not to buy balloons or choosing a better alternative to balloons, we can make a difference.”

Surveys conducted during marine debris and beach litter cleanups indicated that the amount of balloon litter has increased three fold over the past 10 years. Once balloons are released, they can travel great distances and litter remote and pristine lands.

Balloons can take years to breakdown or degrade. Even balloon products marketed as biodegradable or “earth friendly” do not degrade quickly enough to avoid being a danger to wildlife.

Some advocates also question the squandering of a finite resource, helium, to inflate these balloons. They feel that this precious gas is best conserved for medical and industrial applications.

In addition to being a threat to wildlife, balloon releases are littering without consequences. Fortunately, many state, city and local governments recognize this lack of responsibility and have implemented laws prohibiting or restricting balloon releases.

Like Rider, other individuals recognize and initiate activities that tackle this problem head-on. Bonnie Monteleone, founder and executive director of the Plastic Ocean Project, created the Blockade Runner Fishing 4 Plastic Tournament, where charter boats go out into the Atlantic Ocean with participants scooping up plastics with nets.

And guess what? A lot of balloons, maylar and latex, celebrating graduations, Valentine’s Day, birthdays and anniversaries were pulled from the sea along with their deadly ribbons.

Monteleone was surprised to catch so many balloons. “There has to be a more fulfilling way to celebrate activities rather than watching a balloon drift away for ten seconds,” she said.

Balloon releases have long been a way to bring awareness to an event. Even though these releases have good intentions, they cannot be a justification for the harmful aftermath.

Alternatives to balloon releases are gaining popularity. Events are now using kites, colored lights, giant bubbles and candles as a form of celebration. Memorials can be balloon free while promoting life and living by planting trees or putting up bird boxes.

On one of my Bear Island beach patrols, I came across a colorful cluster of balloons at the edge of a sand dune caught in the green dune grasses. Still inflated, the balloons danced around on their tethers in a gentle breeze.

I walked over and popped all the balloons then pulled up the strands of ribbon partially buried in the sand.

At the end of the streamers was a laminated index card asking the finder to return the card with location information. The information on the card indicated that the balloons had been from an elementary school as an experiment on wind direction.

I returned the card with information on the park but also included material on how balloon releases put our wildlife in danger.

A few weeks later, I received a package from the school full of colorings of animals along with a pledge to not release balloons. I was delighted. I still remember and have kept one of the colorings. The drawing was of a pelican, a pelican with four legs. I smile just thinking about it.

Learn More

• Alternatives to Balloon Releases

The hypnotic hymn of the cicadas has been fading like a dying wind each evening as the air grows cooler with the arrival of autumn.

In the night sky, the Big Dipper, called the Celestial Bear in Micmac Native American legend, is spilling fall colors onto the foliage of trees.

Among the neighborhoods, seasonal decorations are blooming like the yellow goldenrod sprouting throughout the sand dunes and along the roadsides.

Halloween is on prominent display in some yards, with skeletons, ghosts, witches, monsters and bats creating spooky dioramas. Of all these goblins, the bat is the least scary to me.

In fact, bats are downright cool and have suffered for millennia from bad publicity. Bats are not blind, they are not rodents, they are not dirty, they do not attack people and they will not lay eggs in your hair no matter what Barney Fife said on the “Andy Griffith Show.”

Also, they do not want to bite you on the neck and suck your blood, well, unless you are a cow living in Latin America.

There are more than 1,300 species of bats throughout the world with 17 species in North Carolina. Among mammals, they are the only species that can take to wing and fly. Along the coastal plain and the barrier islands, the eastern red, evening, big brown, tri-color and Seminole bats are most common.

I remember as a young boy waiting on muggy summer evenings for the flickering mercury-vapor streetlights to illuminate their greenish glow under a darkening sky. Soon, the insects, mesmerized by the light, would swirl around like clouds of a gathering storm. Then, the bats would show up, zipping in and out of the curtain of darkness surrounding the light, gobbling up the bugs.

All the bat species in North Carolina are insect eaters and one bat can consume thousands in just one night. Without the bats, think of all the extra mosquitos buzzing around looking for exposed flesh. Mosquitos are the ones that want to drink your blood, not bats. Bats leave their roosting sites at dusk and head out to forage for insects throughout the night. Some bat species prefer terrestrial insects, some like aquatic insects and some consume both.

Many of these insects are not only the irritating pests that buzz around our heads, but they also are like flying teeth that take a big financial bite out of agricultural operations. As a natural pesticide, it is estimated that bats save around $3 billion annually on pest-control activities and reduce damage to crops.

Bats are agile pilots and use their echolocation system to navigate and locate prey. Their flight may look erratic and spastic as they nimbly maneuver after prey that are desperate to escape. Their flight is powered by wings that are pretty much like our hands with webbing between the fingers. To catch a bug, they emit a high-frequency vibration from their throat and nose. This sound wave then bounces off an insect, which the bat can hear with its ears. It can then pinpoint the size and location of the insect and close in for the capture.

As mentioned earlier, bats are not blind, contrary to the old saying “blind as a bat.” This adage has been credited to the philosopher Aristotle when he penned, “For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.” With apologies to Aristotle, most bats have good vision and use their sight when flying beyond the reach of their echolocation abilities.

Bats are in trouble though. Loss of habitat through development and human activities, the use of pesticides limiting their food source, disease and the outright killing of bats are taking its toll. In North Carolina, three species are listed as endangered, one is threatened and a few others are listed as special concern.

One disease in particular is devastating some bat species. The fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans, is the cause of a disease called white-nose syndrome, which was detected in North Carolina in 2011. This fungus will grow on the exposed skin of bats, their nose, ears and wings, causing tissue damage. The disease also causes them to become active during winter hibernation. Bats rely on their body fat to provide just enough energy while at rest during hibernation to hold them over until they emerge when food sources become available. This activity causes them to use twice as much energy during a time of year when they are not feeding. Burning these fat reserves leads to starvation and dehydration.

The fungus favors damp temperatures ranging from 54 to 67 degrees Fahrenheit and is transmitted by contact. The disease easily spreads when bats congregate in proximity to roost and hibernate in cool moist places like caves. Bats can live 10 to 20 years, but since they usually have only one pup a year, this disease can cause localized populations to disappear quickly. In North Carolina, the disease is mostly in the mountains and the Piedmont without yet being detected on the coast.

Even though misleading myths and superstitions continue to swirl around them, bats do have a few champions. Dr. Matina Kalcounis-Rüeppell, professor and department head of biology at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, has been studying bats for more than 25 years after spending a summer assisting with bat research as a young undergraduate student.

One of her studies focused on the relationship between water quality and the feeding behavior of bats in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Bat feeding activity was monitored upstream and downstream along a creek where effluent was discharged from a wastewater treatment plant. Nutrient levels downstream from the discharge resulted in poor water quality. Bats were observed feeding on insects above and below the discharge area. Of the five bat species present, one species favored foraging for insects in the area of poor water quality, two species avoided the area of poor water quality and two species did not have a preference.

“Bats respond to water quality,” says Kalcounis-Rüeppell. Her study suggests that patterns of feeding activity by certain bat species may be a way to gauge the water quality in urban watersheds.

Ed Corey, inventory biologist with the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation, has been documenting bat activity within the state parks. Corey has spent many long nights setting up mist nets to capture and study the diversity of bats.

Since some bats are wary of the nets, Corey can also identify the different species through acoustical monitoring. Each bat species has a different signature call that is recorded and then identified. Corey is also looking for the presence of white-nose syndrome to determine whether the disease is spreading east. He relates the disease as an “intense athlete’s foot” that irritates the skin, resulting in itching that burns precious fat. He cautions that even though white-nose syndrome has not been documented on the coast, “lack of detection does not mean that it is not there.”

It is theorized that the coastal temperatures may be too warm for the fungus to thrive. Corey’s work documenting bats and other park flora and fauna contributes to the responsible development of park facilities and trails ensuring that species are not negatively impacted.

Spooky or not, bats are beneficial. Some bats prefer eating nectar, pollen or fruit, and thus, help pollinate plants and spread seeds. Even though we have our own Transylvania County in North Carolina, we do not have any of the three species of vampire bats.

Despite their reputation, the medical community is looking upon vampire bats favorably. An enzyme in their saliva, called desmoteplase, shows promise as a clot-busting drug for stroke patients. With a sense of humor, the researchers have named the drug Draculin in honor of Count Dracula. The use of their saliva also dispels the myth that all bats are carriers of rabies. Like a dog or cat, bats can catch rabies, but they are not naturally infected with the virus. Interestingly, the military experimented with a use for bats that is downright scary. During World War II, extensive research, called Project X-Ray, was conducted by the military to assess the feasibility of bats to deliver incendiary bombs into enemy territory.

Even the superhero Batman used the sinister reputation of bats as a weapon against his adversaries. In Detective Comics No. 33, 1939, Bruce Wayne stated, “So my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible … a … a … a bat! That’s it! It’s an omen. I shall become a bat!”

Even though bats are often referenced as evil, macabre and linked to the underworld, many cultures view bats positively. They represent happiness, good fortune, life, transition, rebirth and courage to face our darkest fears. Even with the good, I think it will be hard for bats to overcome their preconceptions. Any respectable Halloween story should probably have started out describing a dark and stormy night with flashes of lightening illuminating an abandoned mansion full of bats flowing out into a thick, low fog and flying above the silhouettes of shadowy mummies lumbering with outstretched arms. As the spooks and goblins venture out tonight looking for treats, I think a number of them will resent the good in bats and be dressed as the Caped Crusader.

How to Help Bats

• Protect and restore their habitats.
• Construct and install bat boxes.
• Do not disturb roosting bats.
• Do not use pesticides.
• Do not intentionally kill bats.
• Learn about bats and educate others.
• Support bat conservation organizations.

Learn More

• Help Wildlife Scientists: “Where Are the Bats?”
• Coexist With Bats

A lone snowy egret patrols the edge of the salt marsh just where the water meets the long slender strands of the bright green grass. Its white feathers appear to have been recently preened, creating an impeccable image of elegance.

Egrets and herons are the iconic symbols, sentinels, if you will, of our coastal estuaries. These are the amazing places where the heavy salty ocean waters meet with the lighter fresh river waters to swirl together into a rich cocktail creating one of the most productive ecosystems on earth. Along the North Carolina coast, 300 miles of sandy barrier islands keep the ocean waves from pounding on the shore of the mainland. However, 20 inlets, from Oregon Inlet to Little River Inlet, cut through the barrier islands allowing the briny water to flood in behind the banks to mingle with the freshwater. A number of large, open, lagoon-like sounds, the Pamlico, Albemarle, Croatan, Currituck, Roanoke, Core and Bogue, form the largest estuary contained within a single state and the second-largest estuary in North America.

Over the years, tidal currents, wind, sediment, storms and the shape of the surrounding shoreline have conspired to create various habitats in and around these shallow waters. You can find a labyrinth of emerald green islands of smooth cordgrass salt marshes, shallow open waters, mudflats, sand flats, oyster reefs, seagrass beds, shorelines and tidal creeks. These habitats are so productive that estuaries are often referred to as nurseries or “cradles of the ocean.”

Because of the protection from the barrier islands, these waters are fairly well sheltered. This security creates a favorable environment for fish, shellfish and crustaceans to breed and live here. These “nurseries” provides habitat for spawning, feeding and protection from predators. It is estimated that more than 70 percent of the recreational and commercial seafood species spend part of, or their entire life in estuaries. This contributes billions of dollars and millions of jobs into the economy providing us with the fish, crabs, clams, scallops, oysters and shrimp we love to consume.

However, estuaries are more than just moneymakers, they are the sponges and filters that help reduce the chemicals, nutrients, sediments and pathogens in our coastal waters. Plants such as smooth cordgrass act as filters and stabilize shorelines as pollutants run off into the estuaries during rainstorms. Due to the high salinity, it is amazing that the prolific marsh grass can grow at all. Nevertheless, it can withstand the biting sting of the brine due to salt filters in its roots and the ability to exude salt through its leaves. Oysters and other filter-feeding shellfish strain out pollutants suspended in the water column. It is estimated that one oyster can filter close to 50 gallons of water a day. The estuarine systems reduce or eliminate the pesticides, insecticides, oils, fertilizer, bacteria, viruses and algae that are harmful to all the species that live in these waters.

Even those who do not care much for fishing or even eating seafood, crazy as they are, still flock to the coastal waters. Recreational swimming, boating, birdwatching and photography, along with the undeniable allure of being in proximity to estuaries, draw millions of visitors every year. For me, the greatest enticement of estuaries are their seductive beauty and charismatic wildlife and flora. The habitats that are above the tidal marshes in the form of hammocks or the maritime shrub thickets provide shelter, food and breeding services for native animals. You can find egrets, pelicans and herons that establish rookeries in the safety of an isolated island in the sound, or the oystercatcher that lays its eggs in a scrape among the shells of an old oyster reef. In the summer, painted buntings hide in the wax myrtle thickets, preparing their nests. I look forward to every fall when the pickleweed creates an explosion of bright red among the green salt marsh grass. Even the crowd-pleasing bottlenose dolphin cruises the estuary channels looking for food.

Our estuaries are in trouble though. For many years, numerous acres have been and still are being lost to land clearing, dredging, draining and filling associated with development. However, in 1972, estuarine sanctuaries were created through the Coastal Zone Management Act. Today, the National Estuarine Research Reserve throughout the Unites States and Puerto Rico manages 29 coastal areas. The national North Carolina reserve sites include Currituck Banks, Rachel Carson, Masonboro Island and Zeke’s Island. The mission of the sites is “To promote informed management and stewardship of North Carolina’s estuarine and coastal habitats through research, education and example.”

In 2000, the Estuary Restoration Act was established to advocate for the protection and restoration of coastal estuaries through the creation of a restoration plan between government and private groups. Nonprofit organizations such as Restore America’s Estuaries and the North Carolina Coastal Federation have led the way in restoring and protecting these vital habitats.

During the past 30 years, the federation has been preserving and restoring estuarine habitat. Here are just a few examples of their work:

• 3,000 acres of wetlands have been restore to eliminate polluted stormwater from entering our coastal waters.
• 47 living shoreline projects have been installed.
• 3 miles of fringing wetlands restored.
• 700,000 wetland plants and nearly 1 million native coastal trees and shrubs have been planted.
• 10,000 acres of conservation lands along the coast through conservation easements have been preserved.
• 200 stormwater retrofit projects such as rain gardens, cisterns and infiltration systems have been installed.
• More than 110 acres of oyster habitat, using over 200,000 bushels of native oyster shell and nearly 70,000 tons of marine limestone have been restored.

Get involved and volunteer with agencies that promote protecting and restoring our estuaries. Do your part by eliminating or reducing the use of insecticides, pesticides and fertilizers near coastal waters. Maintain a vegetative buffer on waterfront property. Use native plants for landscaping. Make sure septic tanks are working and dispose of pet waste properly.

This week, Restore America’s Estuaries and its partnering organizations are celebrating National Estuaries Week, Sept. 16-23, to raise awareness and appreciation of our coastal natural heritage. Even after this week, and throughout the year, you can have your own personal celebration of estuaries.

Anytime you see a group of black skimmers gracefully gliding inches above the water in the golden glow of a sunset, celebrate. Anytime you watch an osprey snatch a fish out of the sound, celebrate. Anytime you go for a refreshing swim, catch a fish or take a beautiful photograph of the marsh, celebrate. Anytime you paddle your kayak along a tidal creek, celebrate. Anytime you eat a shrimp dinner, celebrate. Well, you get the picture.

Learn More

• North Carolina Coastal Reserve Sites
• Restore America’s Estuaries

A late-afternoon shower swept in from the northwest and cruised over Bogue Sound, its ominous clouds scraping over the lumpy dunes of the banks, producing a welcoming rain that extinguished the sticky, muggy heat of an oppressive day. As the storm drifted away to the east, with a few drops of rain still trickling from the sky, my wife and I headed to the beach in search of one of my favorite beach critters.

Crossing the dunes, we were greeted by the freshly blooming seed heads of sea oats swaying in a golden light as weak beams from the sun penetrated the breaking clouds. The rain-dampened sand was firm and cool to our bare feet. As we walked toward the water, a least tern urgently flew past with a small fish firmly clamped in its bill as it winged its way to a nearby nesting colony with a meal for its mate or a newly hatched chick. As the rain clouds drifted away like the sails of a ship, a dramatic meteorological phenomenon spilled out over the Atlantic Ocean.

The colorful arc of a rainbow bloomed like a rare flower across the eastern sky. We stood in awed silence, with the exception of a southwest wind, the crashing sea and the cries of a few shorebirds.

Unlike most rainbows that are delicate and fragile, disappearing in a matter of seconds, this rainbow was strong and vibrant with its complete radiant arc dominating the landscape. The sky above the rainbow was a bit darker than the sky under its arc, creating the illusion of a portal, inviting you to step into its allure. Its beauty was unescapable to all the beachgoers that had returned to the shore after the rain shower. Some stopped to pay homage, their outstretched arms holding cell phones high into the air as if in praise, while they took photos.

Nearby, a young couple, hand in hand, stopped to gaze at the rainbow, then embraced and kissed as if intoxicated by a powerful aphrodisiac. Joy and happiness was now the theme of the day as complete strangers stopped to say hello and comment to each other on the magnificence laid out before them. It was amazing to see how the simple placement of light and moisture could produce such a festive mood of delight.

After about 50 minutes, as I stood in the swash zone with my feet sinking into the sand, the rainbow slowly dissolved into a lasting memory. Small waves raced up the beach and washed around my legs and up to my knees, snapping me back to reality.

Around my sand-buried feet I could feel what felt like small rocks. But I knew they weren’t rocks, I had accidentally found what I came to the beach to look for: coquina clams.

These are those small, 1-inch, colorful, wedge-shaped clams that are seen being washed around by waves at the water’s edge. We see them briefly before their powerful, muscular foot quickly pulls them into the soft sand making them seem to disappear.

During visits to the beach as a child, I remember digging up the tiny mollusks, placing a handful on the surface of the sand and watching them quickly dig back in. Once under the protection of the sand, they will extend their incurrent and excurrent siphons to draw in and expel seawater.

As a filter feeder, the incoming water washes over the gills, which extract oxygen and collect minute particles of algae, detritus and phytoplankton. Once collected by the gills, the food is moved along by cilia, which resembles hair, to be digested.

These bivalves are an important part of the shore-zone food chain, where they are a valuable source of food for fish such as pompano and are favored by migrating shorebirds such as the red knot. Native Americans and early settlers relied on the coquina for food, making a chowder or broth. Even today, some folks will try it as a frivolous cuisine.

At times, during the spring, I have seen large mats of thousands of coquina tightly compacted together and exposed at low tide. Since reproduction is external through the release of eggs and sperm, I assume that this is a mating behavior and increases the chances of fertilization. When the clam is exposed like this it is easy to see their diversity of colors.

Brilliantly colored bands of blue, violet, red, orange, brown, yellow and white decorate these tiny bivalves. Part of their scientific name is variabilis, which refers to their range of colors. Once they are preyed upon by shorebirds, the flashy discarded shells are easy to spot on the beach. Sometimes both halves of the shell are still attached resembling the wings of a butterfly resulting in it also being called the butterfly shell clam.

Even though we might think of shellfish as being sedentary, the coquina clam needs to move daily to position itself for the best feeding opportunities.

They strategically position themselves in the rough and tumble surf zone, where the suspended particles of food they prefer are most abundant.

But how can a clam move up and down the beach as the tide advances and retreats? Well, “Cowabunga dude,” they go body surfing. Research shows that they move shoreward during an incoming tide and seaward during a receding tide.

About an hour after a low tide as the waves begin to roll in, the clams will hop out of the sand allowing them to ride the incoming waves that wash them up the beach where they quickly dig in and begin filter feeding.

Like all surfers, they like the big waves. It is thought that they can sense and feel vibrations from the tumbling waves and instinctively select the biggest waves that will get them up the beach more efficiently. By riding just a few big waves, this reduces the number of times they are exposed and vulnerable to predators. As the tide falls, they do the same, riding the swash back towards the ocean.

Coquinas have long-been viewed by biologists as an indicator species, signifying a healthy and diverse beach. These clams are vulnerable to beach re-nourishment projects where they are buried under massive amounts of sand and unable to escape. This important food source for migrating shorebirds and fish is then unavailable for a year or two until the area repopulates. As a filter feeder, their ability to remove pollutants from the water is also lost. So abundant have these clams been in the past that their shells created a limestone formation found along the East Coast.

As the soft light of a replete day began to fade, I held a hand full of coquina shells towards the extinguishing light. The multiple hues and the vivid radial bands of color glowed like a rainbow, like little rainbows of the sand.

ORIENTAL – My kayak skimmed effortlessly across the smooth glassy waters of a protected channel on a sleepy afternoon near this Pamlico County town. Tall pine trees lining the cut were perfectly reflected on the surface of the water. The images soon became distorted and twisted as if in a house of mirrors as the wake of the boat disturbed the water’s silence. I was off to look for bald eagles after a photographer friend tipped me off to their presence. Last spring, I kayaked these familiar waters in an attempt to find the eagles, but became distracted by a nest of great horned owl chicks.

The stone-lined canal spilled out into an open bay that accepted the flow from a number of different creeks. I pointed my kayak to the east where these estuary waters flood into the lower Neuse River and soon into the Pamlico Sound. To my right, a thin peninsula protected me from the wind as a jumping mullet escorted my progress. Every few seconds, the mullet would jump, smacking the water with an audible splash. I tried to keep up, but the mullet outpaced me and veered off into deeper water. Preoccupied with the oily fish, I failed to notice a bald eagle and an osprey roosting in a large pine until they both launched into flight and flew in different directions. The eagle was most likely trying to steal a fish away from the osprey, a standard practice. With my camera gear stowed securely in waterproof bags, a photo was unlikely anyway.

Fearful that I would miss another opportunity, I guided the kayak to the near shore as the chattering of an annoyed kingfisher protested my arrival. Under the branches of a gnarled old live oak tree, I prepared my camera. The wind-stunted oak tree quickly had occupants as a group of five red-winged blackbirds flew in to investigate my presence. With my camera ready, I shoved off and was soon in open water where the creek met the Neuse River. The wind was significant enough to stir up some chop that smacked the kayak broadside. To keep the swells at a more manageable angle, I had to navigate a big V pattern to reach my destination. As I paddled into the waves, an osprey flew low, just above the water, with a large branch in its talons. It landed on a channel marker where it was building a nest over the water in the mouth of the creek.

Paddling across the mouth of the creek, toward the next peninsula, the bald eagle returned and flew a lazy circle over of a section of pines on the peninsula. Mature bald eagles are dark brown to nearly black with a white head and tail feathers. The word “bald” refers to the color white, not the lack of feathers. They are large birds with a seven-foot wing span and can weigh up to 14 pounds. It flew off and landed about a half-mile away on the skeleton of a ghost tree perched on the edge of the river. Alerted to the stand of pines, I took out my binoculars and surveyed the trees. I quickly saw the object of the eagle’s attention, a large, bulky nest high in the tree. This was obviously not an osprey nest. An eagle nest can be five feet wide and, since the pair will use the nest year after year, it can grow up to 10 feet wide and weigh more than a ton. Through the binoculars I could see three heads popping up like periscopes, baby bald eagles.

I paddled to the far shore to put distance between myself and the nest tree. Here, under the cover of wax myrtles, I set up my camera outfitted with a telephoto lens and waited. Every now and then, one of the chicks’ heads would peer out for a second or two. Then out of nowhere, an eagle appeared over the pines. It made one loop then flew into the wind, navigating the pine branches, and landed on the side of the nest. The parent was greeted with loud, high-pitched chirping from the chicks. The chicks could now easily be seen as they hopped about and jockeyed for position, waiting for the adult eagle to drop the partially eaten fish firmly gripped in its sharp talons. It was now easy to see that these “chicks” would soon be ready to fledge as they were almost as big as the adult.

After the feeding frenzy, one of the chicks moved out of the cramped nest and onto a nearby branch where it would occasionally open its wings. The young displayed dark brown feathers on the backside and brown and white streaking on the breast and underneath. They will not acquire the iconic plumage of an adult until their sixth year. It appeared that this chick was starting the “branching” phase where they venture out onto branches of the nest tree and exercise their wings with short hover flights. As they gain strength, they may take short flights among the branches before they attempt to fly away from the nest. To inspire their first flight, the adults will land on a tree near the nest, appetizing them with a fish.

After dropping off the fish for the eaglets, the adult flew to the branch of a dead pine tree close to the nest. After a few sharp calls that impaled the surrounding silence, it then flew for a brief stay at two other roosting trees, each time moving farther from the nest. With one last call of dominance, it then flew high into the air and out of sight. All this action lasted for no more than five to 10 minutes. I then settled in to wait for more activity. However, the only action to take my mind off the mosquitos and gnats feasting on my flesh was a pair of killdeer plovers tending to a nest of three eggs on a spit of sand. Then, there was a lone lizard, a Carolina anole, climbing the wax myrtle while displaying its bright red dewlap in a desperate attempt to attract a mate.

I noticed the eagle chick that was out of the nest and on the branch was always looking in the same direction, rarely surveying the surroundings. I moved out of my shrub blind and looked east down the shoreline. About a half-mile down on a dead snag was one of the adults and another half-mile down was the other parent. Both were on dead trees overlooking the river, hunting for fish. Using their amazing eyesight, the chick was keeping an eye on the parents in anticipation of the next feeding. The eye of an eagle has two areas of focus that allows them to see straight ahead as well as excellent peripheral vision. They can spot prey a mile away and as they gain elevation they can see even farther.

Native to only North America, bald eagle numbers were once thought to be close to half a million birds prior to colonization. They occupied the east and west coastlines and all the major rivers and large lakes throughout the U.S. However, by 1963 there were only 417 nesting pairs left in the lower 48 states. Declared an endangered species in most of the United States in 1967, this raptor has made a steady comeback from its decline that resulted from loss of habitat, shootings, poisoning and pesticide ingestion. With public awareness programs and government bans of certain pesticides, the raptor started to recover.

In 1982, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission established the Bald Eagle Project to reintroduce bald eagles in the eastern part of the state. The project was a success with a wild bald eagle nest found in 1984 near Lake Mattamuskeet. Commission biologists continue to conduct surveys to determine the number of nesting pairs in the state. The eagles nest throughout the state with the greatest concentration in the coastal plain and the fewest in the mountains. The most recent surveys conservatively estimate that 48 active nests were located along the coastal areas. In 2007, the bald eagle was removed from the federal list of endangered and threatened species. The birds still benefit from the continued protection of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and are still listed as a threatened species in North Carolina. Sadly though, these protections can’t stop idiocy. In February, a mature bald eagle was found shot in the head in Chatham County.

Scientists are still vigilant, learning more about these creatures. North Carolina State University professors Ted Simons and Roland Kays have partnered with wildlife rehabilitation organizations to attach global positioning system, or GPS, transmitters on eagles. Once injured birds are ready for release back into the wild, they fly away with a miniature solar-powered transmitter backpack. Two eagles, a male named Freedom and a female named Yangchen, are providing information about migration, mating and nesting activity. During the past year, Freedom has ventured as far south as Edisto Beach, South Carolina, and as far north as Montreal, Canada, while spending time along the shore of Lake Erie. Yangchen has been less adventurous, sticking to the coastal plain of northeast North Carolina and southern Virginia. Their tracked movements can be viewed by downloading the app “Animal Tracker” on a mobile device.

With the shadows of the trees growing longer, the stillness of the day gave way to a breezy wind that gained strength across the open water. In the golden light of a fading sun, I shoved off into a conspiring wind. As the swells bit the bow of the kayak, a fine mist sprayed into the air, properly soaking me. After about a half-hour of paddling, I turned the boat into a following sea and a generous wind. Soon, I was behind the protection of land and plowed the boat through the placid water. High overhead, I spotted a lone eagle soaring out over the river. The bald eagle has dominated the human conscious for thousands of years. Researchers have found eagle claws where Neanderthals, 130,000 years ago, fashioned them into jewelry, perhaps a necklace of symbolic importance.

I began to think about the Native Americans and their reverence for the bald eagle. They are thought to be spiritual messengers, healers and possess magical powers. In 1782, the fledgling United States selected the bald eagle to represent the nation as its official emblem and it graces the Great Seal of the United States. It is also the national bird, its image printed on money and embossed on a number of official seals. It represents power; strength; truth; integrity; honesty; wisdom; vision; and freedom. We use the image of the eagle in hopes that these virtues will represent what we want to see in ourselves. We must continue to protect the eagle and all wildlife so that the children of future generations can nourish their growing spirit with the wildness of this great earth.

Tired from paddling, I leaned back and let the kayak drift. Looking into the clear blue skies, the eagle soared on a thermal as the lyrics of a favorite old song began to sing in my head:

Above the ridge an eagle flies
In lazy circles in the western skies
I want to fly with him
I want to walk the spirit trail

— Dan Fogelberg, “Spirit Trail”

BOGUE BANKS — After a day of strong gusty southwest winds, the ocean was now soothed by a mild northerly wind. No longer agitated, it lay as calm and flat as an aqua blanket stretching to the cloudless horizon. Large clumps of sea foam were scattered up and down the beach, pushed by the cool breeze as if they were alive and capable of running on invisible feet. As I walked the beach under the golden glow of a rising sun, my feet crunched over the bits and pieces of mollusk shells crushed and broken by the churning waves.

Among the shattered sea shell parts were the remains of other ocean creatures, especially different species of crabs. I suspected that the crabs washed up more or less whole and were then picked apart by the satiated-looking herring gulls that loitered nearby on the sand. I then came across the complete carcass of a small blue crab that appeared to be lifeless and cradled it in the palm of my hand. As I examined it, it slowly raised a claw as if to say “I’m not done yet.” Placing the creature back into the calm waters, a childhood memory flooded into my mind.

While wading in the ocean surf as a young boy, I suddenly felt a sharp pain on the big toe of my right foot. Slowly raising my foot out of the water I expected to see it sliced open by a broken bottle. Instead, the claw of a huge blue crab was tightly wrapped around the digit refusing to let go after a vigorous shaking of the foot. I had to hop to shore as if on a pogo stick where I squirmed in the sand like a worm on dry pavement. After enjoying my state of discomfort, one of my brothers eventually pried open the claw to relieve me from my tormentor.

Blue crabs, notorious for their nasty temperament, are an animal species known as decapod crustaceans. These are the mainly aquatic animals that have an exoskeleton made out of chitin and calcium carbonate. They have five pairs of appendages with the first pair usually being a formidable type of claw or pincher. The main large feature of their body is the head and thorax which is protected by the hard and rigid carapace commonly referred to as the shell. They have compound eyes positioned on long stalks that project like periscopes when they are hiding in the sand or mud.

Most people are familiar with the blue crab as a tasty menu item at any seafood restaurant. They are the backbone of the commercial seafood industry with average landings of 27 million pounds valued at 26 million dollars. But blue crabs aren’t the only fish, uh … crab, in the sea.

Park rangers at our ocean and estuarine state parks have been formally documenting all coastal species for many years. For more than 20 years, Fort Macon State Park superintendent Randy Newman has been scouring the beaches, dunes and waters of the 423-acre park listing every animal and plant that he can find. An expert naturalist, Newman has not shied away from also discovering what lurks in the ocean, inlet and sound waters that surround the park. He has found the familiar species, but also discovered even more species that most of us have never heard of or will ever see.

But Newman has had some help adding to his list. Elliott Coues, an Army doctor stationed at Fort Macon in 1870, was an avid naturalist that prepared an inventory list of crustaceans as well.

Newman was able to track down a copy of Coues’ writings, “Notes on the Natural History of Fort Macon,” and add species to the list. He has also been able to find references and add species from the works of other biologists including scientists working in 1939 with the Smithsonian Department of Invertebrate of Zoology.

More than 50 species of crabs have been found at Fort Macon and they represent species that you would typically expect to find along our entire coast.

Hermit crabs are the interesting-looking creatures that live in the cavity of gastropod mollusk shells. Even though they are crustaceans, they are not true crabs because they are soft-bodied and don’t possess a protective shell. That is why they live inside the protective amour of a seashell. Even though we collectively call them all hermit crabs, there are at least six species off the waters of our state parks. Most common, is the striped, but we also have the dwarf, banded, flat-clawed, clam shell and giant red hermit crabs.

Along the edges of our marshes, it is easy to find the semi-terrestrial fiddler crabs. Sand, mud and brackish water fiddler crabs can be found in their so-named habitats. The male of these species is known for its large fiddle-shaped claw that it waves about to attract females or threaten other males.

Coues noted in his writings his experience with the tiny fiddler crab, “The great claw of the larger individuals is sufficiently strong to bring blood from the finger.”

Large groups of fiddler crabs seen at low tide in the marsh are referred to as a cast of crabs.

Most crabs use their legs for walking, however one family of crabs is adapted for swimming. The fifth pairs of legs on speckled, lady and blue crabs are flattened and used like paddles. Along with their thin, streamlined shell they are able to propel quickly and pugnaciously through the water in search of prey.

Other species of swimming crabs are the iridescent, flat-surface, plain lady and Pacific. The Pacific crab is a rare intruder to the mid-Atlantic coast, most likely being deposited into our waters through the bilge water of foreign ships.

Out in the estuaries, a number of crab species rely on the oyster reef community for food and protection. Spider crabs, known for their long spider-like legs, are masters at camouflaging themselves among the oyster shells. These crabs will decorate themselves with algae to blend in with their surroundings. Some will even attach live sea anemones on their shells to ward off predators with their stinging tentacles.

The oysters themselves host a species of crab that lives inside their shell. The oyster pea crab lives completely inside the oyster shell that provides them with food and safety. They are called a kleptoparasites, because they rob food from the oyster, interfering with its ability to feed.

One of our most colorful crabs is the calico crab that is also referred to as the leopard crab due to large red spots on the pale yellow shell. These crabs are scavengers that feed on the bits and pieces of decaying plants and animals. It is rivaled in beauty by the purse crab, a small crab with a rounded carapace and delicate legs. With a good imagination, the shape of the shell is said to resemble that of a purse.

The biggest bruiser of a crab in our area is the stone crab. Their shell can get up to seven inches wide and is protected with fat boxing glove-like claws. The claw has one movable finger and an immovable palm that can crush and cut into oysters and other mollusks. Like all crabs they must molt as they grow. After molting, their shell is soft, rendering them vulnerable to predators. To avoid detection while molting they usually shed their old shell under the darkness of night. If the molting process starts during the day, they can excrete a hormone from their eyestalk that halts the molting progress until it is dark again.

Having all these crabs in our coastal waters is a good thing. The diversity of these crab species is a good indicator of a healthy ecosystem, even if we get our feet pinched once in a while.

CHURCHILL, Manitoba — What do polar bears have to do with the future of coastal North Carolina? Nothing and everything. At least that is my conclusion after having the opportunity to learn about and witness these magnificent creatures in the wind-swept wilds of Manitoba, Canada. This iconic beast of the permafrost-covered tundra has become the poster child representing global warming and thus, climate change and sea-level rise.

My wife, Bright Walker, has long been fascinated with polar bears and made arrangements for us to meet these arctic beasts. I’ve also wanted to see polar bears in their wild native habitat. Why, I’m not sure, but I think it has to do with their ability to exist in the extreme harsh conditions of the arctic and subarctic. They live in such remote locations that they are almost mythical, like a unicorn. Put the words polar and bear together and that’s an animal I want to see.

Our desire to see polar bears became a reality in November as we looked out the window of the plane on its approach to Churchill. Churchill, the “Polar Bear Capital of the World,” is at the mouth of the Churchill River where it empties into Hudson Bay. It is here, during mid-October through mid-November, where the white bears migrate and congregate along the shore waiting for the bay to freeze. By late November, the bay is usually frozen enough for the bears to venture out on the packed ice in search of their favorite prey, ringed and bearded seals.

Stepping off of the plane, I expected to be chilled by the numbing, subfreezing cold that is typical for Churchill this time of year. Instead, it was a relatively balmy 40 degrees, close to 30 degrees warmer than normal. In a town where the bears outnumber the people, I was expecting to see bears meandering everywhere, each with a bottle of Coke in its paw. To avoid bear-human conflicts, a Polar Bear Alert Team, through Manitoba Conservation, maintains a control zone around the town and conditions any curious bear, through the use of startling tactics, to stay out of town. Some of the more stubborn bears are captured in live traps and taken to the Polar Bear Holding Facility, locally referred to as “polar bear jail.” When the bay finally freezes, the bears are released out on the ice, well away from town.

A bus took us and the group we were traveling with to what was called the “tundra rover launch.” Here, a fleet of these massive vehicles waited to transport polar bear-loving tourists. The rover we stepped into was brand new, a tour bus hopped up on steroids with a bathroom, hot beverages and plush seats. A massive windshield and long rows of windows provided a great view for all passengers. The toasty rover rolled away and headed to a tundra lodge, where we would spend the next few nights. The strategically placed lodge looks like an overgrown train with five cars where the group is housed and fed in a prime sea bear viewing area.

Arriving at the lodge as darkness fell, a lone polar bear slowly rambled over to the lodge with its nose in the air. Viewing from the safety of the lodge deck, someone in the group asked, “Is it smelling the cooking from the kitchen?” Our guide replied, “No, it is smelling us.” Polar bears may appear cute and cuddly, but they are all business when it comes to looking for food. Though attacks on humans are rare, its best not to tempt the apex predator of the Arctic when it is has been fasting for more than three months.

The next morning, the rover headed out on a viewing safari through a maze of roads along the shores of the bay that are part of the Churchill Wilderness Management Area. The rover rolled past outcroppings of large gray rock jutting up through the ground like worn-smooth teeth. Rock that shows the scars and polish from the weight of a 9,000-foot glacier that once dominated the land. The landscape was pockmarked with numerous small, shallow, frozen water holes called kettle ponds that were formed by huge chunks of ice that calved off of the retreating glacier. Here and there, 500-year-old white spruce trees stood stunted by years of cold, their diminutive height betraying their ancient age.

Out on the tundra, with the iceless waters of the Hudson Bay within sight, our guide instructed us to look for the color of a potato chip among the shrub line of the kettle ponds. Here, the bears will be resting in the lee of the willows protected from the wind. Bright was a keen spotter, finding bears that the rest of us would have overlooked. Throughout the morning, we came across individual bears biding their time, curled up in soft beads of kelp that were deposited along the high-tide line of the bay. They were so acclimated to the rovers that they only reluctantly acknowledged our presence and then went back to sleep.

Female bears with cubs were more alert, vigilant and moving around to avoid complacency. Under the desperation of hunger, if the opportunity presents itself, an adult male will prey on the cubs. We witnessed this drama unfold as a female and two cubs were snuggled together among some willows. As we oohed and aahed at the cute sight, the female suddenly lifted her head high as she caught the scent of an unseen male. She quickly guided the cubs out across a large, frozen kettle pond as a bruiser of a male exited the willow thicket and made his way onto the pond. The female and cubs then exploded into an all-out escape run as the talking in the tundra rover fell silent. Our guide quietly and calmly reminded the group about the harshness of nature. I could then hear soft chants of “run, run, run” to encourage the cubs. The male gave a halfhearted chase and quickly gave up as it began to overheat in the moderated temperatures.

To protect the permafrost and not disrupt the bear’s behavior, the rovers are restricted to road travel only. Thus, sometimes the viewing was from quite a distance, but frequently we were treated to up close viewing that made you really appreciate these specialized animals.

Perfectly Adapted

Physically, the sea bear is perfectly adapted to their cold, wet and icy home. Their fur color provides perfect camouflage for capturing prey. A thick layer of fat and two coats of waterproof fur maintain a steady body temperature even when temperatures dip to 30 below zero. Their tiny ears and a small tail significantly reduce the surface area where heat radiates from the body. The huge, island-sized paws have adaptations for many purposes. Sharp grappling hook-like claws make capturing prey easy. Their feet are wide and massive to help distribute the weight of their more than 1,000-pound bodies, reducing the likelihood of falling through the ice. The bottoms of their feet are covered with tiny bumps called papillae that act like snow chains on a tire for traction. A bit of webbing between the toes of their front paws propels them through the water at 6 mph, leaving any Olympic swimmer in their wake. Classified as a marine mammal, their hollow hair provides buoyancy when swimming long distances between ice flows.

Their bodies and lifestyle are so specialized that they are vulnerable to the consequences of global warming and the loss of life-giving sea ice. Sea ice now forms later each year and melts earlier, resulting in fewer weeks for the polar bears to hunt seals before the ice melts. Winter is when the food is abundant, thus polar bears don’t hibernate. After the melt when the bears are back on land, food is limited and they basically fast and wander in what is called a “walking hibernation.”

Overwhelmingly, the scientific community agrees that carbon dioxide and methane emissions along with deforestation are the major causes that prevent heat from escaping the atmosphere, resulting in global warming. In the Arctic, sea ice and glaciers help to steady global temperatures by keeping the polar areas cool. The arctic ice and snow reflect sunlight and act as a protective barrier, preventing the warming of land and waters under it. However, because of warming polar temperatures, there is now less surface area of sea ice and glaciers and fewer days of seasonal sea ice. The amount of Arctic sea ice in 2016 was at a record low with more land and water exposed to absorb the heat rather than reflect it.

So, what do polar bears have in common with coastal North Carolina? As they lose their habitat, so will we. The loss of sea ice magnifies the warming of our oceans causing thermal expansion, resulting in sea-level rise. This thermal expansion, along with the melting of land-based glaciers, raises the sea level. Many scientific researchers say that even if we immediately start taking serious measures to combat global warming, the tidal wave we have launched cannot be called back, it will eventually reach the shore. It is already evident and will continue in the form of erosion, flooding and saltwater intrusion. Additionally, ocean acidification from carbon emissions may soon have a corrosive effect on developing shellfish shells and climate change could bring us more severe hurricanes.

Under a cloudy evening sky, I stood out on the deck of the tundra lodge as one of the bears silently walked by with the swagger of the “Lord of the Arctic.” The joy and excitement of seeing polar bears was personal and deeply emotional to many of the visitors. Our guide mentioned at the end of one of our trips across the tundra, “I saw tears today; it has been a good day.”

The layer of clouds evaporated and green curtains from the heavens began to spread across the sky. Alive and vibrant, the northern lights shimmered, undulated and cascaded in the atmosphere above the lodge. It danced like a ballet without the dancers; it was a song without sound and a poem without words. As the neon lights above me began to fade, I began to think about the polar bears and whether they too will fade into a memory and become as mythical as a unicorn.

CARTERET COUNTY — During a recent early morning walk along the shores of Bogue Banks, the spreading rays of the rising sun pushed the remaining darkness below the horizon and released a brilliant blue sky. A restless cool northwest wind had all the beach grasses, little blue stem, sea oats and the dune shrub branches of yaupon and wax myrtle dancing and swinging. As I made my way off the beach and through a cluster of small lumpy sand dunes, I found a lone monarch butterfly among the tattered seed head of a sea oat plant. It was gripping the stalk of the plant tightly as it swayed in the breeze.

Because of the cool morning air, this monarch would be grounded from flight until the radiant sun warmed its body into a takeoff temperature of about 86 degrees. I left the monarch to sunbathe in the golden morning light, knowing that it would soon be fluttering off to continue its daunting 2,000-mile journey to Mexico.

The king of butterflies, the Monarch, was named by entomologist Samuel Scudder, the first to document the name in 1847 because, as he put it, “it is one of the largest of our butterflies, and rules a vast domain.” It can be found from central Mexico north into the United States and all the way up to Canada. Monarchs have fascinated us because of their mysterious but magical metamorphosis, phenomenal migration and secretive hibernation. Their scientific name, Danaus plexippus, translated from Greek, refers to their “sleepy transformation.”

Each spring, the generation of monarchs that hibernated in the mountains of central Mexico will be awakened by the longer warmer days. They will mate and by early March they will be heading north looking for their host plants, many different species of milkweed plants, where they lay their eggs. When these eggs hatch, the tiny caterpillars will grow as they munch on the leaves and they will be the first of four generations of monarchs for that year.

The adults of the first three generations live for about two to six weeks, leap frogging farther north laying eggs as they go throughout spring and summer. By fall, the fourth and final generation of the year will begin heading south ahead of the cold fall temperatures and on to Mexico to complete the cycle. This last group will live about nine months and along the trip to Mexico they do not mate or lay eggs. They are mainly focused on finding flowers abundant with nectar to fuel their bodies along their long trek.

Souls of the Departed

It will take the insects almost three months to reach the wintering ground, traveling about 30 miles a day. To conserve energy, the monarch will often fly thousands of feet into the air where it can hitch a ride and glide on northerly wind currents and thermals. Each year some areas may miss seeing the showy mass migration in their communities because the butterflies are high in the air and not visible from the ground. Eventually they will return to the ground to refuel. They actually need to suck up enough nectar to gain weight during this energy burning marathon. Once at the hibernation site, they need to arrive with enough fat reserves to see them through the winter.

The arrival of the monarch in Mexico is culturally significant as the country celebrates Oct. 31-Nov. 2 the Day of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos. This holiday honors relatives that have already passed on and celebrates their return with feasts. The appearance of the monarchs in late October is a homecoming of sorts; legend holds that they are the souls of the departed returning to earth.

As if the harrowing migration isn’t enough to stress this species, they also have to overcome predators, loss of habitat, poison and climate change. The larval stage of the monarch is most vulnerable to spiders, ants and wasps while the pupae stage has few worries. Adult monarchs do, however, have a secret weapon to deter their main predator, birds.

During life as a caterpillar, the monarch has consumed the leaves of milkweed plants that contain a compound called cardiac glycoside. These compounds now reside in the adult, and when eaten by birds, cause them to displeasingly vomit. So potent is this unpleasant experience, the birds quickly learn to avoid this black and orange gastronomic menace.

A Vulnerable Species

Monarch populations are in a decline for a number of reasons, most notably is the loss of habitat that provides their most basic needs: a host plant, nectaring flowers and shelter. Milkweed is needed to lay the eggs where caterpillars will have abundant leaves to feed on, and flowering plants produce nectar to energize the flying adults. Critical habitats that support these plants have been lost to development or rendered unsuitable due to excessive mowing practices and the heavy use of herbicides. Adult monarchs also die outright from the indiscriminate use of insecticides. The size of their hibernation sites, which provide shelter from the weather, continues to shrink from deforestation.

These forests, where it is estimated close to 50 million monarchs hibernate in huge clusters on the branches of oyamel fir trees, are high in the Sierra Madre Mountains. At close to 10,000 feet, the site is cool enough, without freezing, that the monarchs do not metabolize and, thus, conserve their fat reserves. The forest is frequently covered in clouds and fog which keep the insects moist and provide water to drink. Finally, the surrounding forest forms a protective buffer from high winds during storms. This site, known as the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, is so special that it has been designated as a World Heritage Site.

With most of the world’s monarchs hibernating in one small location, the entire species is vulnerable to catastrophic storm events spawned by climate change. Extreme weather events and unseasonable fluctuations in temperatures, attributed to climate change, could wipe out millions of monarchs in one day. Global warming temperatures also make the oyamel fir trees vulnerable to damaging insects that normally don’t tolerate cooler temperatures. One researcher, Dr. Cuauhtémoc Sáenz Romero, has proposed a proactive solution: Start planting oyamel trees at higher elevations to provide wintering habitat for the monarchs when the lower elevation trees start dying out.

It has been estimated that monarch populations have been reduced by 90 percent just in the last 20 years alone. The monarch isn’t in dire straits just yet, but the potential for disaster still exists. The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers the monarch near threatened and their migration spectacle a threatened phenomenon. Monarch Watch, established as a nonprofit in 1992 through the University of Kansas, has been a leader in promoting education, research and conservation of monarchs. The program relies on volunteers, teachers, researchers and students to tag and observe monarchs to learn more about their migration. They also are promoting their Monarch Waystation Habitat program to create fields of milkweed and flowering habitat at schools, public land and commercial and residential landscaping. We can all contribute by doing the same in our yards and discontinuing the use of insecticides and herbicides on our properties.

Promoting Conservation

For the past three years, the central regional office of the North Carolina Coastal Federation has been working with teachers and students to promote monarch conservation through educational programs and enhancing rain gardens with milkweed and nectar producing flowers. We recently went to a primary school where the federation had constructed a rain garden to eliminate stormwater runoff from a school parking lot. We talked with the kids about the value of reducing water pollution by creating the rain garden but also spoke of the importance of the rain garden plants for pollinators such as butterflies and bees.

The addition of pollinator education into our rain garden programs is supported by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grant. This grant creates critical habitat for pollinating insects such as the monarch. We helped the children create their own paper monarch, place a tag on it and practice capturing it in a butterfly net. The final activity was to tag and release a live monarch. The children sat in front of me on the grassy lawn with their wide eyes staring up at me in anticipation. I began to really appreciate the tough job that our teachers face every day on how to reach their young minds. I enjoy teaching school kids, but first-graders, that’s a tough crowd; I’d rather wrestle a grizzly bear.

As I placed the tag on the monarch, I thought about how important it is to be exposed to nature at a young age to foster appreciation and compassion for our natural world. I helped one of the students caress the monarch between her fingers and hold it over her head, then we released it. As it fluttered off into the cloudless sky and the kids oohed and awed, I heard one of the students say “have a safe trip to Mexico.”

EMERALD ISLE — The setting sun was moments from embracing the horizon as its last rays of light burst across the sky, dripping a stain of yellow and gold down into the waters of Bogue Inlet. Off in the distance, to the right of the sun, huge clouds towered towards the heavens, giving the flat coast a mirage of mountains. Out over the sound, a long line of pelicans glided in unison as they headed to seek refuge for the night.

Only a few days from the official start of autumn, I stepped out onto the back deck of my house and tried to make my way through an invisible curtain of heat and humidity that would not part. It was as if I had walked headlong into a large, sticky spider web. I stared into a green wall of live oak and holly leaves just a few feet away, searching for the source of the sound. A sound of summer, that when silent, signals the changing of the seasons.

In mid-summer, the sound starts gradually and gains strength each day as new members join the chorus. We grow so accustomed to the noise that we almost don’t even notice it. Like a sound machine, it is nature’s lullaby, the call of the cicada, a white noise that can lull you to sleep on the soft breeze of a summer afternoon.

The dog-day cicada is a type of annual cicada that emerges from underground every year. They differ from the periodical cicadas that emerge after 13 or 17 years. These cicadas begin their life as an egg that is laid by the female in tree branches. She uses her rasp-like ovipositor to cut a trough into the bark where she places her eggs. Each female will lay more than 500 eggs in clusters of 15 to 20 eggs. After about six weeks, the eggs will hatch and the tiny nymphs will fall to the ground. Using their powerful legs, they will burrow into the ground where they will spend practically their entire life. Here, they will search for tree roots, then sink their needle-like mouth parts into the roots and extract the sap for sustenance. After about three years of digging around in the dark, the nymphs will emerge from their subterranean home when the ground temperature reaches around 64 degrees. Once on the surface, they search for the base of a tree and climb a few feet up the trunk. The insect will go through a metamorphosis of sorts and begin life as an adult. Clutched to the bark of the tree, the exoskeleton of the nymph will split open on the dorsal side and the soft, plump light green shape of a winged adult cicada will soon crawl free of its past life. The dry husk of their exoskeleton will remain clinging to the trees bark like a rock climber frozen in time. The whole process may take up to a few hours before the insect has hardened, changed colors and is ready to fly into the safety of the trees.

Dog-day cicadas are named for the time of year during which they are noisily conspicuous. The dog days refer to the hot days of summer when the Dog Star Sirius, which is part of the constellation Canis Major, rises at dawn together with the sun. It was once thought that the combination of Sirius, our brightest star, and the hot sun united to create the hottest days of the summer.

As the days of summer continue, more and more cicadas emerge, creating a sound that has been described as a commotion; roar; fracas; clamor; blare; clatter; uproar; cacophony; and a buzz. A choir of cicadas can crank the volume up to about 100 decibels, sounding as loud as a chainsaw or circular saw. This sound is created by the insect vibrating a membrane, called a tymbal, on the side of its abdomen.

Why all the racket? Well love, of course. It is the male calling out to attract a female. Their call is heard most often during the day and seems to peak in the mornings and evenings. At times, their call will reach a crescendo and quickly taper off before cranking up again. This is because the muscle used to contract the tymbals gets fatigued and needs a short breather.

During a recent bike ride, I came along a section of road where a number of cicadas were littered on the pavement. I picked up one of the black creatures, which were less than two inches long, to examine it. Dark green color was mixed in on the top of its head and thorax. Cicadas will have a few color variations of green, brown and almost all black. Its clear wings completely sheltered the abdomen. I cupped the cicada in the palm of my hand and looked closely to see if it was still alive. I could easily see its two large compound eyes and could also make out their three simple eyes in between the big bug eyes. They only live a little more than a month while above ground with their only task to mate and lay eggs. Why they were all on the ground and not in the trees I do not know. Maybe they had just mated. Maybe they were females attracted to the sound of lawn mowers and leaf blowers that had recently manicured the lawns along the street. They have been known to be enamored with lawn equipment. So I tossed the one in my hand into the air to see if it was still alive and it took off with a clattering sound and shot into the trees like a wayward bottle rocket.

Because of their large numbers in the canopies of trees, cicadas have long been mistaken for and misidentified as locusts, which are a type of grasshopper. Cicadas are more closely related to crickets and have even been called “tree crickets.” They are also referred to as the “harvestfly” as they are present when crops are ripe for harvest in late summer and early fall. Their mass emergence over the course of a couple of months ensures that some will survive predators due to “safety in numbers”. Exposed in the open, cicadas are vulnerable to predators, the gift of flight and camouflage is its only defense. Birds will prey on them as will a wasp appropriately called the “cicada killer.” The most interesting predator of all is one you wouldn’t expect, the copperhead snake. Cicada nymphs emerge during the summer nights right around dark and continue to come out of the ground for a few hours. Copperheads have learned to search fields and lawns that are fairly open but contain a few large trees. As the nymphs crawl toward the trees to climb up the tree trunks, the copperheads are lying in wait. They will eat the nymph and the freshly emerged adult before it can fly. Because of the abundance of nymphs, numerous copperheads might congregate around a single tree. In Texas this past summer, 33 copperheads were observed in one lawn feeding on the cicada nymphs. After about midnight, the nightly emergence is over and the copperheads return to the cover of the woods.

Cicadas have long been a symbol of rebirth, immortality and change. As long ago as 200 BCE, jade carvings of cicadas were buried with the dead to aid in resurrection. When the Greek mythology character Tithonus was given the gift of immortality by Zeus, it did not include eternal youth. Thus he continued to age into a shell of a man and was eventually transformed into a cicada. In folklore, cicadas’ presence signals that fall is fast approaching and that the first frost will occur in six weeks.

Now, a few weeks have passed since the official arrival of fall and the cool mornings play the discernible silence of the cicadas. I will miss the cicadas until next year when we all can:

“Feel the freshness of the air; how pretty and pleasant it is; how it echoes with the summery, sweet song of the cicadas’ chorus!”

— “The Phaedrus,” by Plato

Learn More

• Listen to the song of the cicada.

ATLANTIC — I nervously sat in a college lecture room in 1978 waiting to be handed the results of my final paper for a course on technical writing. The professor strolled about the classroom tossing the papers onto our desks. I was relieved to see at the top of mine, about the eastern brown pelican, a high grade in red ink. At the bottom of the page, I noticed the hand written notation, “What has the world lost if there are no more pelicans?”

I was initially stunned, stunned that my instructor had no compassion for the other creatures of this earth. Then, I was irritated with myself. Maybe my paper had all the merits for technical writing but it didn’t have the content to turn a stuffy college professor into a pelican-loving tree-hugger.

The paper probably mentioned that they have a seven-foot wing span, weigh eight pounds and that their pouch can hold over two gallons of water. But, it obviously didn’t ooze with the joy I feel when I see a pelican at sunrise gliding inches above a cresting wave.

This memory flooded back to me as I stood in early July in chest-high stalks of fuzzy green dog fennel on an island in Core Sound with the uninviting name of New Dump Island. Since the early 1980s, the island has been an important rookery for hundreds of nesting brown pelicans.

The island is a big pile of sand consisting of dredge spoil remains, the results of hydraulic dredging to keep the local channels and inlet open for boat traffic. Ever since the island was created, the pelicans and other waterbirds have coveted it as a prime nesting site. In the open waters of Core Sound, New Dump Island has minimal vegetation and is free from predators such as raccoons and foxes, making it a pelican nesting utopia.

Managed by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, the island has been monitored for nesting activity since 1983 when 141 nests were counted. Each year since, hundreds of nests are identified on the island, with a peak in 2004 of 1,110 nests.

Earlier on that hot July morning, I, along with North Carolina Coastal Federation interns, gathered at a boat ramp in the Down East community of Atlantic. Here, we headed across the shallow waters of Core Sound on a homemade boat that looked much like a floating screened-in porch with an outboard motor.

As we approached the nesting island, some adult brown pelicans with their yellow head plumage were lounging on a nearby exposed sandbar, while others could be seen off in the distance plunging into the water in an effort to catch a pouch full of fish. Pelicans were flying in and out of the island as if it were a major airport hub.

The shallow water prevented the boat from reaching the island, so we abandoned ship and waded through the water, pausing to look at a huge live keyhole urchin.
Once on the island shore, we met up with two biologists, John Weske and Micou Browne, who have been banding brown pelicans and other shorebirds every summer throughout coastal North Carolina for much of their lives.

We were a group of green reinforcements here to help band this year’s brood of pelican chicks. A breeze somewhat weakened the heat of a hot summer morning as Weske gave us the history of the pelicans’ struggle for survival. In the late 1800s, pelicans and other colonial nesting birds were slaughtered to support a 30-year fashion craze for bird plumage. Once thought to be a threat to the commercial fish harvest, the pelicans were killed to eliminate what was perceived as competition.

Pelican populations were also victims of the broad application of pesticides, specifically DDT, on farm fields. Carried by stormwater runoff, the poison made its way through the food chain and into the pelicans, wreaking havoc on their reproductive system.

Though scientist still debate the validity of DDT harming pelicans, the chemical is thought to have caused the shells of their eggs to become thin and brittle, breaking, as the adults incubated them. To provide warmth to the developing embryo inside the egg, pelicans will actually stand on their eggs, transferring the warmth of their large, fleshy webbed feet. Under the weight of an adult pelican, the weakened eggs were often destroyed.

Populations plummeted and the eastern brown pelican was listed as an endangered species in 1970. After DDT was banned in 1972, along with other persistent pesticides, the pelican populations began to rebound, and in 2009, the species was completely delisted with populations now nesting as far north as Maryland.
With instructions from the scientists, we waded through the dog fennel and into the interior of the island in search of the chicks. While the interns were new fodder for the snapping young chicks, I was given the privilege of actually banding these white fluffy snowballs with wings. Adorned with a silver necklace of 50 aluminum bands and armed with a pair of needle nosed pliers, I waited to band my first pelican.

These bracelet-like bands will provide information on nesting site, longevity, migration, breeding age and population trends. This is knowledge that is needed to help biologists preserve and restore this coastal icon so that it is never threatened again.

Without flight feathers and unable to fly, the chicks raced into the safety of the low, grassy vegetation away from the intruders. They looked like clumsy little dinosaurs with their stubby white wings stretched out and held high as they ran away. As an intern reached in to pick up a chick, it would lunge at its pursuer with a mighty snapping of its long bill that resonated with the sound and power of a large rat trap. Once captured, the dangerous beak of the chick was secured by the intern’s left hand, with the right hand cradling the bird on the right hip as if holding a toddler.

I pulled the white downy wing and grabbed the chick’s warm leg. I then spread open one of the thick metal bands and wrapped it around the scaly leg. I crimped the band together with the pliers until the two ends met smoothly, leaving no gap that could allow discarded fishing line to entangle the bird.

Sounds simple right?

These pelican chicks hid in the dog fennel and one wasn’t too thrilled at the prospect of having a band attached to its leg.

Not so much for a novice. It took me minutes to get the bands just right while I watched the biologists attach the bands in seconds. Browne has been banding birds since he was 13 years old, and Weske has been doing it for over 50 years, including forest birds of the Peruvian Andes.

I studied their technique for pointers.

After banding tens of thousands of birds, they had the fast twitch muscle memory to apply the bands. With the strength of vice grip pliers, they would close the band with their hands then apply two quick squeezes of the needle-nose pliers. An audible snap could be heard when the ends of the band closed tight together.
The brave interns, now with battle scars from the sharp claws, scoured the island for hiding chicks. Disappearing into the head high fennel, they would reappear with the prehistoric-looking birds.

Once while applying a band, an intern holding a bird could feel the undulations of the pelican starting to throw up. She then expertly guided the beak away from us to avoid being hit by the shrapnel of partially digested fish. The resulting small made clear why this defense mechanism is so effective.

The personalities of the chicks varied, some were resistant, while others complied. Once captured, they were usually submissive, helplessly resigned to being assigned their own unique number etched on the shiny silver band.

As we left the chicks to be reunited with their parents, I began to think that my technical writing professor was sending me a veiled message with his comment about a world without pelicans. It was a defining moment for me, a challenge you might say. It was a way to provoke me into presenting information on nature and our wildlife in a way that will hopefully cultivate and inspire environmental advocates and stewards. However, I do have an answer to the question. A world without pelicans, or bears, wolves, whales, lions, elephants and all wildlife would be sterile and barren indeed, a world lost and without a soul.

The skiff smoothly skimmed across the flat glassy marsh waters tinged yellow by the rising sun. Movement of the boat created a breeze that washed away the sticky humidity on this muggy summer morning. I was headed to Bear Island, the National Natural Landmark that is part of Hammocks Beach State Park, to assist with the banding of some migratory song birds.

When I got to the banding site, two men, hidden behind a wooden partition, had already prepared the banding materials and equipment. They were now passing the time swatting the biting flies and no-see-ums that were torturing any exposed skin. They listened and stared intently towards a cluster of wax myrtles and yaupons, waiting, waiting for the bird some call “the flying rainbow.”

Nonpareil, a word of French origin, is defined as better than any other, having no equal, of unequaled excellence, unmatched and above comparison. These are the words used to describe the radiant beauty of the small finch that brings a splash of color to coastal North Carolina each spring. In mid-April, these beauties begin showing up among the coastal maritime shrub thickets near and along the salty estuarine waters. A Native American legend tells the story of the Great Father painting the world, once finished, he used all the remaining paint to color this bird.

Painted buntings, which are in the same family of birds as cardinals, have two separate populations that inhabit the United States. A larger bunting population is found in the southern central states and a smaller eastern group ranges from Florida to North Carolina. Although a few vagabonds do sometimes stray farther north, such as the male that showed up last December in Brooklyn, N.Y., at Prospect Park. Here in the big city, this gaudy bird received the same celebrity status as if Bigfoot were to sashay down Broadway Avenue.

With their technicolor plumage that would cause a peacock to blush with envy, the flashy male painted bunting arrives early along the N.C. coast to establish and defend its territory. When not breeding, the male seems shy and modest, hiding its good looks among the twigs and branches of shrubs. However, during the spring, it is pleased with its exotic good looks and will sing a sweet, melodious song from an exposed perch to show off for the ladies. The females, however, remain silent. The male will repeatedly sing as many as 10 songs a minute to assert its dominance. Agitated males will engage in aerial fighting that may end up in a physical ground struggle to settle any disputes. The winner must continue to remain vigilant, driving out any intruders. Once boundaries, about three acres, have been established, the male can relax a bit and concentrate on singing its song to attract a mate.

While the striking male painted buntings get all the attention, the females are always downplayed and described as drab. But I find their tropical, yellow-tinged green color quite attractive. The juvenile birds of either sex are also a green color. This green coloration provides great camouflage for the nesting females and young birds to avoid detection by predators. The males will make their magical transformation after they molt during their second fall season.

When the females arrive, about a week after the males, they select a mate and the pair will search for a nest site among the protection of the maritime shrub thickets. The female builds the nest, and then incubates the three-four eggs, while the male takes care of feeding her. After hatching, the female feeds the hatchlings until they fledge about two week later, unless she nests for a second time. At this point, the male will take over feeding the first brood and the nesting female as well. Using their stout, V-shaped beak, they will feed on a variety of seeds and insects.

By August, the pressure is off of the males and their territorial rage has subsided. They can even be spotted feeding calmly together at bird feeders. After spending the summer breeding and raising their young, by mid-September they are headed to the southern tip of Florida, Cuba and other Caribbean islands. Once back on the wintering grounds, some of them cluster in groups that are referred to as a mural or palette due to their artistic colors.

The arrival of painted buntings in North Carolina is celebrated every year by birdwatchers along the coast. Feeders are cleaned and filled with white millet, then strategically placed near a thicket edge where the birds have a quick escape to cover if threatened by larger birds. I hear stories of one-upmanship and bragging rights each summer as to who has the most painted buntings visiting their feeders. The breeding residents will range as far north as the tiny coastal village of Marshallberg in Carteret County. However, sightings of the bird at feeders in winter have been increasing over the years with sightings as far north as Buxton in Dare County. Enough winter sightings have occurred for it to almost be considered a winter resident.

These birds are in a bit of trouble though; their numbers have been in a steady decline for decades. Their favored habitat of maritime shrub thickets is disappearing. The eastern population of this species is most vulnerable to habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation due to the steady pace of continuing development along the coastal shorelines. However, residential and commercial properties can still be landscaped with native species and in a way to provide for the buntings.

Populations of the bird are also declining in the saddest way possible, the trapping and selling of wild male painted buntings. During the breeding season, the singing of a caged male painted bunting is used to entice a territorial wild bird into a trap, seizing the bird. They are then sold throughout Mexico, Central America, Cuba and Europe. Though it is illegal to possess these birds in the United States, they are readily available on the Florida black market. Every year arrests are made of people in possession of songbirds that are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. There is one amusing story of an individual that was prosecuted after posting photos of caged buntings on a Facebook site. Not only are the birds sold, but they are also held captive for tranquil gambling competitions. Once captured, they are held in cages and matched against each other in underground singing events where betting takes place. Bird song gambling, I swear, I’m not making this up. These matches, called a race, are where the first bird to sing an agreed-upon number of songs wins or where the bird that sings the longest song wins. Sometimes money is on the table, or in friendly bouts, a golden bird trophy is up for grabs.

The loss of habitat and the caged-bird trade has helped land the painted bunting on a number of dubious lists. In North Carolina, they are listed as a federal special concern species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, they have been designated as a watch list species by Partners in Flight, and BirdLife International has categorized them as near-threatened.

Fortunately, there are concerned people out there doing good things to help ensure the survival of these magnificent creatures. In 2005, bird conservation specialist, Dr. Jamie Rotenberg, assistant professor of Environmental Studies at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, set out to learn more about the decline of the painted bunting. Knowing that two eyes are better than one, he spearheaded the organization of what is now known as the Painted Bunting Observer Team. Their website states “PBOT’s goal is to observe, record, and catalogue sightings of this beautiful bird, whose population has been in decline for several decades.” Dr. Rotenberg has coordinated a network of “citizen scientists” to observe and record information such as date, location, time and individual numbers of the birds along the east coast from North Carolina to Florida. He has also banded hundreds of painted buntings at numerous sites and will soon be publishing his findings that include the data collected by the team.

Back on Bear Island, Keith Jensen and Ed Dombrofski were banding the buntings through the direction of John Gerwin with the N.C. Museum of Natural Science. Over a period of weeks, the birds are enticed to frequent feeders filled with tasty millet. On banding days, a cage with a feeder is placed at the same spot. At first the birds are confused by the different feeder, but they eventually figure out how to reach the seed. Once inside the cage, the birds are trapped similar to a crab pot. Keith and Ed delicately remove the birds and conduct a physical exam, recording data including weight, age, sex and measurements of their wing, bill and fat accumulation. Each bird receives an aluminum band with a unique identification number as well as three colored bands that reference where it was banded. The banded birds will help the citizen scientist’s better document the bird’s behavior giving insight into their migration routes, reproduction, life span and population estimates.

On this day, the bird was then handed over to a researcher from the University of Oklahoma to be fitted with a light-sensitive geolocator. As the buntings migrate in late summer, the geolocator will record the length of day and night for each day. The amount of day and night on a given day can then be calculated to reveal the latitude and longitude to pinpoint a specific location. In the coming years, if the bird is recaptured, the device will be retrieved. The collected data will give a better understanding of migratory routes and where habitat conservation efforts should be targeted.

As the morning temperatures increased to a sizzle, the buntings abandoned the feeder for a favorable retreat into the deep shade of the shrubs. As the researchers put away their banding gear, I was thankful for these individuals that have a deep respect and love for our wildlife. Their work will go a long way to hopefully ensuring that we will always be able to enjoy the magnificence of the painted bunting.

If you live along the coast, near salt or brackish water, set out a cage type bird feeder, one that provides protection from larger birds, fill it with white millet and be on the lookout for what the early Spanish explorers called “mariposa pintada” which translates to “a painted butterfly.”

Learn More

• Painted Bunting Observer Team
• Eastern Painted Bunting Population Assessment and Monitoring Project
• Audubon Guide to North American Birds

Throughout much of this winter, I have been out and about retreating into the solitude of nature by exploring the national seashores and wildlife refuges of coastal North Carolina. Throughout my excursions, there is one animal, a bird, that is a constant no matter where I roam.

Over the lumpy dune fields, salt marshes and open fields, this hawk is a reliable companion. Easy to spot, this slender bird can be seen flying low over open areas ready to pounce on unsuspecting rodents, reptiles, birds and even insects. It appears to be in no hurry, a lazy flight with a flutter and a wobble here and there, almost like a butterfly at times. Its most identifiable field marking is a distinctive, quite visible, white rump patch that makes me think of chipmunks and chuckle with laughter, but we’ll get to that later.

The northern harrier, also referred to as the marsh hawk and gray ghost, is a migrant along the coastal plain during the winter months. While it is the only one of many harrier species found in North America, it also ranges in Europe and Asia.

The term harrier has evolved from an Old English word that alludes to one that plunders or harasses. Its scientific name, Circus cyanus, is derived from Greek and Latin words that refer to a hawk that circles and has a grayish-blue color. It is, however, only the male that sports the gray color while the female is slightly larger and mostly brown in color.

Out on a cold outing recently, I watched as a northern harrier flapped its long wings and glided low up and over the dunes of a deserted barrier island. It would drop into the dune valleys, disappear from sight, only to reappear and circle back to where I first saw it.

As it glided back past me, its wings were in a modest “V” position while its long rump feathers trailed along behind like the tailcoat of a tuxedo. The attitude of its wings is another distinguishing feature that is also seen in turkey vultures. This “V” wing posture is known as dihedral and helps stabilize flight at low altitudes or in unpredictable wind conditions. It also helps them stay airborne with minimal flapping of their wings. Since they rely on the surprise of stealth, excessive motion of their wings could betray their location to potential prey. Their soft quiet wing feathers, like those of an owl, are another adaptation that aids them in avoiding detection.

I watched as this harrier searched for prey, gliding low amongst the dunes, back and forth over the same expanse before concluding prey opportunities were bleak. It then moved on to new territory, continuing its pursuit using this hunting pattern known as quartering.

Northern harriers have good eyesight that helps them locate and snatch prey with their razor-sharp talons. But they also rely heavily on hearing to zero in on a position as prey scurries under the cover of tall grasses. Upon close inspection, the face of a northern harrier looks somewhat like that of an owl with a modest facial disc. The disc consists of short stiff feathers around the eyes that collect and magnify sound to the ears. They also have a ring of similar feathers around the neck, called a ruff, which can be raised to improve hearing much like cupping your hand behind your ear.

While the harrier doesn’t have the blazing speed of a falcon, it does have the ability to hover and perform vertical takeoffs and landings. These are the same traits found in an aircraft used by the British Royal Air Force and the U.S. Marine Corps that they named the Harrier in honor of the bird.

During one of my winter trips to Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, I was able to witness a harrier conduct such maneuvers over a wide drainage canal. After quartering a length of this ditch, the harrier briefly hovered and drifted straight down below the bank of the canal and out of view. A few seconds later, it rose straight up out of the canal with a bird in its talons and carried its prize to a bare patch of ground near the edge of the water. I’m not positive, but since harriers are known to cache food, I felt that this bird had been killed earlier and the harrier was now ready to satiate its appetite.

On this day, as the sun was setting, the flight of harriers showed more purpose as they ventured off into the distance. Perhaps looking for a safe spot to roost for the night where they are sometimes known to communally seek the company of short-eared owls and merlins.

As I hiked back to my truck, under a cold sky fading into the darkness, a male northern harrier, no more than 30 feet from me, glided low over a field of corn-stalk stubble. Its head slightly glanced to the left and we made eye contact. Unconcerned, it sailed on, disappearing like a ghost into the night.

EMERALD ISLE — A week before Christmas, while out on an early morning jog, I came across a large eastern red cedar tree in a residential neighborhood that was beautifully decorated for the holiday. Seeing the tree reminded me of when I was starting out on my own as a young park ranger with Christmas a just a few weeks away. I had settled into the park housing and was quite happy to have my own place, just me and my dog, Max.

After about a week, my boss dropped by and commented that he noticed that I didn’t have any Christmas decorations or a tree for that matter, garnishing the house. I explained that with the meager ranger pay, I could hardly afford to buy a tree. After a bit of thought, he said “just go out into the dunes and cut down one of those scrawny cedar trees”, which he said, would make a great Christmas tree. So off I went, down a sandy trail behind the park house with a rusty hatchet in hand, and Max, steady at my side, in search of an eastern red cedar.

The eastern red cedar has a bit of an identity problem since it isn’t really a true cedar at all. It is actually a juniper, Juniperus virginiana, the only species of juniper to be referred to as a cedar. This evergreen is a pioneer species that quickly establishes in disturbed open areas allowing it to thrive in the constantly shifting sands of the barrier islands’ dunes. Its seeds are cast about after a trip through the digestive system of a number of bird species including the cedar waxwing. These birds, as their name suggests, prefer the blueberry-like seed cones. Research indicates the seeds have a much greater germination success rate after they have been ejected by these birds.

As I headed off into the dunes, Max protested with a few whimpers. He demonstrated an unusual obedience as he waited patiently for me on the well-worn path. This obedience was not taught by me, but by the sharp sting of the prickly pear cactus. His last trip into the dunes resulted in many of these plants impaling his paws much like the ones that were then clinging to the thick leather of my boots.

Not far from the path was a perfect, triangular-shaped red cedar. Long prized by the early “bankers” for their shape and aroma, these cedars were favored as Christmas trees and have, and still do, adorn many a coastal island home.

I stood and admired this jade-green, six-foot tree, imagining it bringing life into my spartan living room. Then, deep within its boughs, I noticed a tightly woven abandoned bird’s nest on a branch close to the trunk of the tree. Cedars are important bird habitat providing seed cones as food, dense shelter from the weather and a concealed nesting site. Since they are slow growing and long lived, they provide decades of habitat for generations of a variety of bird species.

Their slow growth has earned them the nickname, the graveyard tree. If you plant a red cedar when you are young, then by the time it is big and substantial enough to provide a shady spot, you, according to folklore, will be near death.

Even before the early Colonists arrived in North America this tree was special to the native Americans. Many native cultures held the red cedar in high regard. For the Cherokee, the wood of cedar trees holds the spirits of their ancestors and is, thus, a sacred tree. This tree was employed by many tribes for a number of uses. Berries, leaves and small branches were used to treat a variety of medical ailments such as bronchitis and arthritis. The wood was burned to cleanse and purify or as incense. It was also used to make bows for hunting and musical instruments such as flutes and drums. Native Americans also used cedar trees to make tall posts that were used to delineate tribal areas and hunting territories. The red, rot-resistant heartwood was used, allowing the post to stand tall as a boundary for many years. When French explorers began invading southern North America they discovered a number of these posts in a particular location in what is now Louisiana and named the area Baton Rouge, French for “red sticks.”

Over the years, the red cedar has been harvested for a number of products: Its processed oil is used in insect repellents and perfumes; the seed cones are used to flavor gin; the heartwood is rendered to make a red dye; the wood is used to make pencils and fence posts; and farmers plant rows of the tree to create an erosion-stopping wind break. Hope chests are built from the insect-repelling red cedar wood to protect valuable clothing or blankets from the damaging moths. This handsome tree with its rich red-colored wood has sustained and provided for beasts and humans alike. It is only held is disregard by those, myself included, that suffer from pollen it spews on the gentlest of breezes during late winter.

I backed away from the red cedar tree on that day long ago and never did chop it down. I guess the bird’s nest and the powdery, waxy blue berries gave me second thoughts. I cut across the dunes taking a short cut back to the path, giving me a head start as I raced Max back to the house. That year, I was content with boughs of yaupon and their brilliant red berries scattered about on window sills to provide me with all the Christmas cheer I needed.

The celebration of Thanksgiving is largely viewed as a tradition that was started in 1621 in Plymouth, Mass., by early Pilgrims indebted to be alive in a new world. The Pilgrims feasted with the native Wampanoags, an Algonquin tribe that taught them how to cultivate and farm the land and, thus, essentially saved their lives.

However, long before these colonists sailed to North America, cultures from around the world conducted similar ceremonies of thanksgiving for the blessings of the Earth.

Today, the holiday is a time for families and friends to gather, enjoy good food and reflect on the things that we appreciate in life.

I have had the pleasure to live on the coast of North Carolina for almost all of my adult life. To be surrounded by the ocean, the beaches and the estuaries is something that I often take for granted and sometimes don’t appreciate as much as I should. Over the past few weeks I’ve been reflecting on the traits, some subtle, some not, of this unique, beautiful environment. So, in honor of Thanksgiving, I want to present a few of the virtues of the coast for which I am thankful.

A Lasting Impression

If you are attentive, you can sense the presence, sometimes miles away, of the ocean without even seeing it. The smell of the ocean drifting on the sea breeze can leave a lasting impression. The unequaled aroma of the ocean is a smell that people never seem to forget. I remember riding to the beach as a child with my brothers and sisters and our heads hung out the window like dogs to see who could be the first to smell the ocean.

But what is that delightful smell that permeates the air? Well, to my dismay, I have discovered it isn’t mermaid perfume. The scent comes from a gas produced when bacteria eat phytoplankton, a very small plant that floats near the surface of ocean waters. Not too exciting, huh? What is exciting, as it rises into the air, this gas will oxidize and form clusters big enough to absorb water vapor that can eventually form clouds.

For those living at the beach, the sound of crashing waves, is the constant reminder of a vast ocean. However, as a part of everyday life, it can sound like white noise, a sound without any meaning until it is silent.

Where I live on Bogue Banks, a north wind will smooth out the incoming waves and blow out to sea any sound. This is about the only time you can’t hear the ocean. But the rise and fall of the swells can still be heard in the mournful groan of a whistle buoy near the inlet channel. Even on the calm days, the smallest waves can carry a resonance well into the interior of the barriers islands. If you listen closely, the voice of the ocean can reflect its personality, be it a whisper or a shout. For me, I find the sound of the ocean to be comforting no matter the disposition of its roar.

Near the beach, the lumpy sand dunes seem to move as the feathery filaments of sea oats dance in the wind. Caught in the golden glow of the setting sun, the seed heads almost look like the flame of a candle. Throughout the seasons, the dunes are decorated with flowering Indian blanket, little bluestem, goldenrod and yucca.

As a kid, I used to stomp along the dry loose sand at the base of the dunes, causing the sand to make a barking or squeaking sound. Walking out onto the beach, even today, I am still amused by the sand as it barks under my bare feet on a warm summer day. Barking sand is caused when the surface layer of fine dry quartz sand grinds against adjacent sand layers.

My Moody Friend

The ocean has an instinctual draw within all of us. It’s hard not to just stare out into the horizon and be mesmerized and hypnotized into a tranquil state of being. Swells, rising and falling in the distance, come rolling in. This pulse of the ocean is tangible, something that we can see and feel. Any swimmer, surfer or boater has felt this pulse surge over, under and through them.

The ocean is my moody friend, alive, with a dynamic, ever changing personality, influenced by the wind, currents and tides. Its waves, reaching the end of their journey, pitch and spill, race up the sloping beach before being sucked back into the sea, unable to escape, forever sequestered within the rim of the oceans.

I love the open horizons with their unobstructed views of the landscape. You hear about Big Sky country out West, but it has nothing on the coastal skies of North Carolina. Sunrise and sunsets are magical here, over the ocean, the marshes or through the dunes. The mixing of red, pink, orange and yellow colors splash across the skies like light streaming through a stained glass window. The colors reflect down on the dead slick, calm marsh water, creating a mood that nourishes the soul.

And the moon, how I love a fat, silvery full moon lifting out of the ocean and dripping its moonbeams onto the sand. Even a moonless night has a grace all its own with billions of stars twinkling across the heavens while the crashing surf zone sparkles with bioluminescence. While miles away, a lone thunderstorm can be seen drifting out to sea. Each flash of lightening explodes like a firecracker inside the cloud, illuminating the fluffy cotton ball formation for only an instant.

Then there is the wildlife. We have elegant dolphins and whales leaping out of the water, ancient sea turtles crawling across the sand and statuesque great blue herons silently guarding our marshes. A diversity of wildlife that has adapted and struggled to live among humans, bringing us joy and wonder.

Thanksgiving holidays and the coast have always been a part of my life. I remember many beach walks with my brothers and sisters along with laughing nieces and nephews with dogs running about. During my career as a park ranger I was required to work alone on many Thanksgiving holidays. I must admit, I often preferred it, with the coast as my companion, I was never alone.

To spend the days alone patrolling the marsh waters and barrier islands of our magnificent coast never felt like work, it was an honor and a privilege. For that I am forever thankful.

Summer has slipped away and I will miss its caressing warmth. I don’t even mind the muggy sticky humidity that hangs over the coast like a blanket during the steamy months of July and August. Ultimately, like the tide, the season will officially change when the sun crosses the celestial equator at about 4:20 Wednesday morning in what is known as the autumn equinox.

I will have no choice but to accept this climatic transformation.

What Is the Equinox?

The September equinox arrives on Sept. 23, at 4:21 a.m. when the sun crosses the celestial equator, an imaginary circle in the sky around the Earth directly above the terrestrial equator.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the sun crosses the equator from north to south, marking the beginning of autumn. The sun is rising later now, and nightfall comes sooner. This is our autumn equinox, when the days are getting shorter in the Northern Hemisphere.  On Wednesday, at the equinox, day and night are about equal in length.

South of the equator, Wednesday marks the beginning of spring.

Early September has already ushered in milder weather as the cool fronts begin to drift across the country. This time of year, these pushes of northern air are usually escorted by a variety of migrating birds and butterflies fleeing south to warmer latitudes. The movement of these animals is triggered, instinctually, by air temperature and shorter periods of day light. The day of balance is upon us, equal day and equal night, the symmetry of the autumn equinox. For those observant enough, a messenger has for week been spreading the word of its impending arrival.

Along the coastal plain of North Carolina, anyone out for a walk will notice one of the first signs of the approaching autumn skipping just past their noses. At first, a sighting here and there, then a trickle of brilliant yellow streaks floating through the air, followed by a steady stream of fluttering lemon yellow butterflies. The cloudless sulphur butterfly has arrived and it has relaxed my grip on summer.

The dazzling and showy color of the cloudless sulphur is reflected in the insect’s scientific name, Phoebis sennae. Phoebis is derived from Pheobe, the Titan goddess of Greek mythology, who was known for her radiance and brightness. Pheobe was also known for her prophecies. The arrival of the cloudless sulphur butterflies along the coast has long been an alarm clock, alerting the local fishermen to ready their gear as the waters will soon be thick with spot and mullet. Its common name, cloudless sulphur, represents its sulphur-colored wings that are clear and free of blemish.

Cloudless sulphur butterflies are wide ranging and are found from Argentina north into south Texas and across the Southeast. During summer, they stray into the Midwest and some will even reach Canada. In North Carolina, they have been documented in all 100 counties and are predominantly seen during the fall migration while limited numbers are seen in the spring.

Their flight can seem erratic, but like a sail boat tacking against the wind, their zigzagging eventually leads them to their destination. During migration, however, their flight is more matter of fact with the males outpacing the females to wintering sites while covering close to 12 miles a day. The females will actually reduce their flight tempo while flying with the wind. It is thought that this conserves precious energy that will be needed later to produce and lay eggs.

A curious thing though, while most of the cloudless sulphur butterflies are heading south, racing ahead of the frigid future, a number of them, undaunted, are actually heading north. While the cloudless sulphur is more tolerant of the cold than most butterflies, this is a fool’s errand. Eventually, they will be caressed by the embrace of a powerful artic air mass that will greet them with the cold, cruel, kiss of death. It is not fully understood why some take on this suicidal journey, but it may be a way for them to develop genetic changes that eventually allow them to survive in colder climates and extend their range.

As I watch from my porch in Emerald Isle, it is obvious that the sulphurs passing through are heading north. A few stop among the flowers to slurp up energizing nectar with their long proboscis. Out in a clearing, four cloudless sulphurs converge together and conduct a butterfly version of the chest bump in midair. They then swirl around chasing after each other while spiraling up into the air like a mini, yellow tornado. At tree-top level, they separate, flying down and away from each other in different directions showering the sky like Fourth of July fireworks — a butterfly scuffle triggered over the nectar rich flowers or males intent on finding a mate.

The numbers of cloudless sulphur butterflies will dwindle like the amount of daylight. Like the metamorphosis of a butterfly, the equinox dawns the transition into the migration of a new season.

As I jogged along the beach one morning, gusty winds busted apart huge sudsy chunks of sea foam lining the shore, scattering it into softball-size dollops that slid up the sloping, sandy beach. As the foam raced along, the soapy globs looked like gremlins disappearing into the beach as the sand popped the air bubbles in the foam and they shrunk in size. Long lines of the foam stretched down the shore up to 20 feet wide and almost two feet thick in some places.

In one iceberg-looking chunk, I saw something moving within. I scooped and fanned the foam away until the head of a sea bird poked through like a periscope.

Hurricanes, tropical storms or any period of strong sustained winds will transform the surface of the ocean into a churning agitated chaos of crashing, tumbling and pounding waves. As the energy of these waves surges upon the shoreline it will transport and deposit oceanic flotsam onto the beaches. As the tide recedes, seashells from gastropods and bivalves along with seaweed and driftwood litter the shore.

The eager, beachcombing seashell collectors that are the first to reach the beach after a storm will also notice something else, a thick fluffy white layer of sea foam. Depending on the amount of turmoil that the waves have created, the height and thickness of sea foam on the beach may vary from inches to feet. But the volume of sea foam is also dependent on the ingredients that make it form in the first place. Air, water and decaying organic matter are all players that collaborate to create this frothy formula.

Over the years, I have been approached by people holding out heaping bubbling handfuls of the foam and asked, “What is this?” Well, the foam is created when windy weather aerates the top surface of the ocean. If just air and water are present, air that is trapped under the water in bubbles will normally rise to the surface and pop. Add what is known as a surfactant, such as decaying organic matter containing fats and proteins, the air bubbles tend to stick together. In most cases, the organic matter is decomposing algae, seaweeds and other ocean plants. The surfactant particles are drawn to and resist water at the same time.

When all of these particles are swirling around together, their magnetic-like properties trap air between thin layers of water creating bubbles. The dissolved organic matter also provides a bit of structure, giving the foam strength.

The stunning display occurred thanks to the raw swell agitating the water, strong southeasterly winds and over six inches of rain washing a large amount of organic material into the turbid waters of Louttit Bay in Australia.

Sea foam has the potential to materialize along any shoreline if the ingredients and weather condition collide at the right time. In some instances, the amount of foam seems unbelievable, covering roads, cars and houses. A 2007 occurrence in Australia earned one beach town the nickname “Cappuccino Coast.”

Typically sea foam occurs naturally and is harmless. However, at times stormwater runoff can reach the ocean containing pollutants that effervesce and could pose a health hazard. Even some naturally occurring algae may have toxins that are irritants to our lungs and skin.

This brings us back to the bird, a sooty shearwater, which I found encased within the sea foam on my morning jog. Not far from that bird, I found an Audubon’s shearwater, also coated in the sea foam. Both birds were docile, weak, soaked and unable to fly. Sea foam produced by some types of algae has been known to reduce the ability of bird feathers to repel water. When the birds come into contact with the foam they become soaked and the feathers are unable to keep them warm and dry, resulting in hypothermia.

I assume that this may have been the case with these two sea birds since they were completely soaked. I scooped up both of the shearwaters and took them to a local wildlife rehabilitation center.

Sea foam can even be quite beautiful in the soft golden light of the setting sun. According to one Greek myth, Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love, was created in the sea foam. The word “aphros” is even Greek for foam. She was born from the sea foam after an unfortunate sickle incident involving Uranus, the god of the sky, and his son, Cronus. You’ll have to research the details of this one on your own.

The “eyes” on the wings of Polyphemus moth are meant to trick birds and other predators.

An adult Polyphemus moth lives about a week after emerging from its cocoon. With no digestive track or mouth parts, it can’t eat. It’s only function is to mate.

EMERALD ISLE — A Cyclops stayed at my house. You remember the Cyclops from Greek mythology, those giants with one eye in the middle of their forehead? The poet Homer brought to life the nasty man-eating giant Cyclops, Polyphemus, in his book Odyssey. My Cyclops, though, was no problem at all; it built a snug little room outside, and kept to itself.

The Polyphemus that I came to know first showed up in the fall last year in the form of a plump, neon green, three-inch caterpillar crawling up the path to my house. This insect was in the final stage as a caterpillar before beginning the process of metamorphosis to become a moth.

After hatching from a tiny egg, the Polyphemus larvae will ravenously begin consuming the leaves of a host plant such as the willow trees in my yard.  As they grow, the caterpillar will molt, shedding their exterior covering five times. The sloughed off skin, which contains valuable nutrients, is also consumed.

Due to the size and color of this bug, I knew that it was either a Luna moth or a Polyphemus moth caterpillar. Both of these caterpillars look very much alike; however, I nailed this one down as a Polyphemus due to its vertical yellow striping. The Luna caterpillar, on the other hand, has a horizontal side stripe.

The visitor wandering around outside my house was looking for a spot to hunker down for a long winter. It might seem odd that the caterpillar would leave the safety of the trees to seek out a new unfamiliar location to build its cocoon. They are now vulnerable, and the presence of these caterpillars is betrayed by the presence of chewed up leaves and droppings, called frass, that will surely tip off a hungry bird looking for a meal. Its green coloration can provide some camouflage, but when threatened, it will snap its mouth parts and its final defense is to throw up a nasty tasting liquid that rejects even the hungriest bird.

It meandered off the path and made its way up to the leaves of a small oleander bush. Here, it began to crawl around back and forth around a clump of leaves. It appeared that its mouth parts were on the edge of the leaves and it was continuing to browse. However, I noticed that the leaves were not chewed on at all. Through my camera lens, on micro setting, I could see the head and mouth parts up close and got a case of the heebie-jeebies. This was a nasty looking face that could easily be the inspiration for a B-grade creature feature.

The plump moth caterpillar will ravenously feed on plants before weaving its cocoon.

It continued moving around a cluster of four leaves and I noticed some stringy web-like material being emitted near the mouth that coated the edges of the leaves. It then crawled and sandwiched itself horizontally between two of the leaves and then reached up and pulled down a third leaf, and then the fourth leaf, to wrap around as much exposed flesh as possible. The stringy coating is the silk produced by this family of moths, very much the same as what is found in commercially produced silk. Even today, some people collect hatched out cocoons to produce silk yarn. The silk is made of two proteins, sericin and fibroin. The fibroin provides the structure while the sericin provides the stickiness necessary for good adhesion. Silk sericin is used in the cosmetic industry for skin creams and hair conditioners to prevent moisture loss. It is thought to have been used for over 3,500 years to address the vanities of the human body.

As the light was ebbing from the sky, the caterpillar was soon wrapped up like a leafy egg roll. The next morning I checked on the caterpillar and a complete greenish cocoon encased the creature which was now transforming into the pupa stage. In a few days, the greenish color of the cocoon faded into a chalky white. Since this insect was going to have to wait out the next seven months until spring, the pupa was now in a state called diapause, like a form of hibernation.

I checked the cocoon over the months to make sure that it had not been discovered by any predators such as a squirrel or raccoon. It endured many rainy, windy and freezing days during an arctic cold winter by coastal North Carolina standards. On a few occasions, the freezing rain created an icy “cocoonsicle.” But the cocoon and pupa shell kept the critter tight and dry and the cold temperatures were not even an annoyance. The pupa is loaded with an antifreeze-like substance called glycerol, basically alcohol and sugar, which protects it from freezing down to minus forty degrees.

A new cocoon, top. One that is several months old, left, and an empty cocoon after the moth has emerged.

The days came and went and the cocoon showed the battering of the harsh coastal elements. The cold winter had even killed the small oleander and I had to bind the supporting branch with duct tape to keep the cocoon off the ground.

I pretty much had given up hope on the visitor in the yard. Then, late one warm spring afternoon as I was walking up to the house, I noticed a fresh beautiful five inch Polyphemus moth along the edge of the pathway only a foot or two away from the dead oleander bush. I quickly checked the cocoon and it still looked firm and intact. But upon a second inspection of the cocoon I discovered a very small hole at the top of the casing. To escape its winter home, the new moth produces an enzyme substance called cocoonase that will tenderize the tough silk. Then, using two small thorn-like barbs, it will wallow out an escape opening to squeeze through and out into the same world, but with a different body.

Polyphemus had now arrived and the relationship to its name was staring right at me. Two large exotic looking “eyes” were on the hind wings while two smaller silver “eyes” were on the forewings. These eyes are their predator defense mechanism that is part of a camouflage system designed to startle and distract predators.

Its small slender antennae and ample egg-filled abdomen indicated that this was a female. A male has a smaller abdomen and large feather-like antennae. The male Polyphemus will emerge a few days before to be available when the ladies arrive.

After about an hour, the female crawled over to the stalk of a jasmine vine and climbed up into the leaves about five feet up. As soon as the sky darkened, she began releasing a potent pheromone that the males can detect over a mile away. This moth perfume is so effective that the female will just sit back and wait knowing that an eager male will be attracted within hours. Sure enough, the following morning I was up before the sun and used a flashlight to discover that a male was with the female.

And that is pretty much what adult Polyphemus moths do. They lack mouth parts as well as a digestive tract and thus, they do not eat. After mating, the male will go in search of other females and the female will go about scattering her fertilized tan-ish colored eggs. But their procreation duties are over all too soon as they only live as an adult for about a week. Unless they overwinter as a pupa, their entire life span is only around three months.

Later that morning, the moths were gone and I suppose that the female was depositing some eggs here and there on the willow and oak trees. I will soon be checking the trees for the caterpillars and in a few weeks I hope to find a few of the cocoons that hold the magic and beauty of transformation.

Woodcocks are usually masters of camouflage, except when the ground is covered in white. Photo: Sam Bland

EMERALD ISLE — The past two months have delivered winter weather to coastal North Carolina full of cold temperatures, freezing rain, sleet and even some snow. Snow is rare enough along the coast that locals become giddy at the sight of an overlay of the white powdery stuff decorating the dunes and marshes. I must admit that I like a Carolina snow and I always head out for long hikes to enjoy the unusual scenery before it quickly melts away in a day or two.

Snow events are a good time to go out and look for birds as they are a bit more conspicuous against the white background and they are a little more tolerant of humans as they scramble to find food. A covering of snow and ice can make it difficult for the birds to locate enough food to keep their metabolic rate high enough to stay warm while maintaining their fat reserves. Birds are well protected from the cold by the insulation capabilities of their feathers, especially when the feathers are puffed out to prevent heat from escaping. When it’s really cold, they will sit down to prevent heat loss and their muscles will also shiver to create heat. Some birds will even huddle together at night to stay warm.

As I headed out on my hike, I was quickly startled by two woodcocks that bolted from the ground and into the gray morning sky. I continued on and soon flushed two more woodcocks, then a few more and within a quarter of a mile I saw about a dozen of these masters of camouflage. The cryptic pattern of their brown, black, rust and gray colored feathers was useless against the white ground cover and I was spotting them everywhere. They were probing their long bills into any available patch of bare ground looking for a meal.

Cedar waxwings are handsome birds. The birds raise their slick backed crest when annoyed.

These spots are waxy, flattened extensions of the feather shaft and are the reason the bird is referred to as a wax wing. Photos: Sam Bland

One of the birds walked into a shrub thicket to elude me but I headed in after it to try to get some photographs. The bird effortlessly darted around the trunks of the small trees like a slalom snow skier while I was being scratched and poked as I pushed through the branches. It finally stopped and hunkered down by a small wetland that wasn’t completely frozen. I found a spot and did the same, sitting on the mixture of sleet and freezing that was as hard as concrete. Amazingly, the woodcock started walking right towards me and stopped about ten feet away behind the base of a small live oak tree. It stepped out from behind the tree a couple of times to look at me and I was able to get a few quick opportunities for a picture. The uncomfortable sitting situation encouraged me to leave the thicket and unburden the woodcock of my presence.

Over the next few days, I would see close to a hundred woodcocks. I have never seen so many over such a short period of time, and assumed, since woodcocks migrate early, that this flock of birds was already heading north.

I popped out of the dense brush and hiked over to the edge of another wetland where an opening in the vegetation offered a commanding view. Across the way, a great blue heron was protected from the wind on the leeward side of a large live oak tree. It sat motionless, with its head and bill buried into its breast feathers to ward off the cold. Out of the reach of predators, this beauty rested without a worry.

A small flock of American robins flew in and settled on the bare gray branches of a dormant tree giving it the appearance of instant leaves. A few of these birds were quickly drawn to a small opening where the water had not been completely glazed over with a crust of ice and immediately dipped their beaks into the cold liquid. As I watched the robins quench their thirst, I heard numerous high pitched whistling sounds fill the air. I turned around to discover a different group of birds adorning another naked tree.

One of my favorite birds, the cedar waxwing, had descended upon the neighborhood. Cedar waxwings are non-territorial social birds that travel in small groups of 50-100 and are found throughout North America. They will rest together in trees while emitting their shrill high-pitched call, which to some, borders on annoying. This has resulted in a group of waxwings being referred to as an “earful.”

These frugivorous wandering birds of winter will usually always show up, unpredictably, to strip the trees of their fruit. The flock will work cooperatively to find an area with a number of fruit bearing trees, such as eastern red cedar or American holly, and the feast is on. As their name implies, they have a preference for the cedar berries. Not only do they work in sync to find food, but they help each other while feeding. If a cluster of berries is difficult for the entire group of birds to reach, they will line up on a branch and pass the berries, beak to beak, down the line feeding each bird in the group. When the amount of fruit in an area is limited, small groups within the flock will feed in a rotation allowing all the birds an opportunity to feed.

Cedar waxwings indulge in berries, which can sometimes make them drunk. Photo: Sam Bland

They indulge in the berries in more ways than one. Sometimes, after they have eaten berries as their only source of food, they will also get a buzz on. When weather conditions are favorable, the sugars in the fruit will ferment and turn into alcohol. After consuming these potent berries, the bird may be rendered inebriated, and at times, fall into a stupor until they sober up. High alcohol content has even been reported to kill a few birds. Once the fruit on the trees has been gobbled up, which may take a few days to a couple of weeks, they will then move on to another area and might not be seen again until next winter. During spring and early summer when fruit is not as readily available, they will survive on insects.

During their abbreviated stay, it is irresistible not to enjoy their beauty and compassionate behavior. These stunningly attractive birds appear proper and dignified, yet, also with a bit of mystery. Their plumage has a soft, silky, velvety texture that blends a variety of colors creating an elegant looking creature. The light brown head is adorned with a slicked back crest that is only raised when the bird is annoyed. Its eyes are cloaked with a black mask outlined with a narrow white boarder. The breast is gray and tapers down to a whitish, weak yellow belly. The back is light brown that gives way to a gray tail and wings. They are accented with a luminous yellow tail band which is sometimes orange if the bird has been consuming fruit of an invasive honey suckle. Some of the birds also sport a few droplets of a dazzling red color on the end of their secondary feathers. These spots are waxy, flattened extensions of the feather shaft and are the reason the bird is referred to as a wax wing. The color is due to a carotenoid pigment called astaxanthin. Both sexes will have the red drops, however, they will appear as the birds mature and increase with age, thus, young birds will not have the red color. Research suggests that the number of red drops relates to the age of the bird and will help them find a mate of similar age during the breeding season.

The waxwings perched in the bare tree politely waited their turn and when the robins abandoned the watering hole, a few swooped in for a drink. As the last light of the day began to fade, I walked away from the wetland flushing a few more woodcocks, which delighted me as I made my way home.

EMERALD ISLE — The morning after Christmas day, I decided to go for a jog to burn off some of the decadent food and goodies that I had enjoyed while lounging at home the day before. Stepping out the door, a gloomy gray sky held promise of an intending rain along with a brisk north wind that stung with wind chill near freezing.

I headed out along the deserted holiday roads for a few miles and eventually made my way out onto the hard packed open beach strand that was shrinking due to an incoming tide. The beach was empty on this raw day except for a few people who were obligated to provide their dogs some relief. Waves from the ocean raced up the beach and chased me higher up the beach like a sanderling scampering in the surf. About every five minutes, a set of larger waves would roll in with brown pelicans and gannets gliding above the crest. Just as I was about to jog off the beach towards my house, a large splash about a hundred yards offshore caught my attention.

I stopped and stared out into the emerald waters as a set of waves started crashing off shore. Then as if launched by a submarine, three Atlantic bottlenose dolphins rocketed simultaneously from one of the waves and continued to leap three or four more times. The trio was joined by other dolphins as they continued to jump and ride the waves for about a minute or two. It was like a marine mammal troupe version of the Cirque du Soleil. I have seen dolphins leap from the ocean before, but this was different, this was special.

I raced home, put on some dry warm clothes, grabbed my camera gear and rushed back to the beach. Maybe twenty minutes had passed and I was back at the same spot where I saw the dolphins. Without a fin in sight, I watched the pelicans gliding gracefully above the surf as the gusty north wind pushed at my back.

If I have learned one thing in attempting to photograph wildlife, is that patience is a virtue of necessity. Sometimes you get lucky and an opportunity will come to you without a lot of effort. But more than likely there is a lot of waiting followed by more waiting.

So I settled in and waited. Staring out at the ocean is not a bad way to pass the time as I watched the tops of the cresting waves being blown out by the stiff breeze into millions of droplets that showered down like rain.

After about an hour, I scanned the sea with my binoculars and saw a large dark object on the surface of the water about a mile away. What I fantasized to be a humpback whale turned out to be a large cloud of cormorants flying low over the ocean. Just as I was about to lower my binoculars, I saw a dolphin rocket straight into the air, curl into the shape of a “C” and stick a nose first vertical landing with only a tiny splash.

I race-walked down the beach towards the dolphins as they continued to frolic. I finally reached the group just as they settled down, but I could follow their location as their dorsal fins sliced through the water. With my camera ready, I waited and watched for a set of bigger waves to arrive.

Out in the distance I could see the swells approaching and the dolphins sensed them as well as they positioned their streamlined bodies to catch the waves. It was on, as five to seven dolphins leaped out of and rode the wave. As the set of waves continued, so did the dolphins. I tried to keep up and get some photographs, but they were all over the place and to be honest, I just wanted to watch.

There is a scene in the new movie, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” where a photographer passes up on a once in a lifetime opportunity to photograph a rare animal. The photographer decides instead to live in the moment and see the animal without the distraction of the camera. This is a feeling that I completely identify with and have yielded to on many occasions, and thus, I stepped back from the tripod and just watched. The set fizzled out and the dolphins moved down the beach. I hoped that the show wasn’t over, but I didn’t care since I was filled with a memory that will last for a long, long time. I savored my moment and was now ready to capture some photographs of these magnificent creatures performing their acrobatic antics.

With my long camera lens pointing out to the ocean, a man walking his dog walked up and asked what I was taking pictures of. As if on cue, the dolphin show was now into act three.

“Oh” he said, while almost buckling at the knees, “I’ve got to get the family.”

So, I had some company.

The dolphins were amazing in ways that I cannot adequately describe. They were elegant and graceful while also powerful and athletic. There was what appeared to be playfulness along with a little rough housing. Their display had the handful of people on the beach cheering, laughing and clapping. All the while, I was firing away hoping to get a few pictures to capture this beautiful moment.

By now, a few hours had passed as a steady rain began to fall. The larger waves were no longer cresting on the outside sand bar due to the flood of the high tide. The dolphins had vanished as I stood on the rise of a sand dune scanning the water for them.

Alone, standing in the rain, I felt a sense of joy and happiness. Yet, I was a little emotional as well because I would have loved to have shared that extraordinary beautiful moment of dolphin behavior with people who I know and love. But at least I have a few photos to relive the moment.

Glasswort is a type of plant known as a halophyte which can tolerate and thrive in areas with high salinity. Like these in Bogue Sound, they are one of first to show up in a protected tidal mud flat and create habitat for other species as well.

Almost every day, my travels take me up and over the high rise bridge that spans Bogue Sound and reaches over from the mainland to the western end of the barrier island known as Bogue Banks. The apex of the bridge yields one of the most beautiful sights along the North Carolina coast. A patch work of green Spartina marsh grass islands and small upland islands look like giant jig saw puzzle pieces that are floating among the tidal creeks and channels creating a maze-like landscape. From here, I always look to the west in an unconscious reflex to catch a glimpse of Bear Island, a remote beach lover’s paradise that quenches my thirst for the raw beauty of an unspoiled barrier island.

In late summer, as I summited the bridge, my gaze towards Bear Island was interrupted and stolen by a large blanket of red vegetation that was spread out in an open mud flat adjacent to a spoil island just west of the bridge. I was pretty sure I was familiar with the plant, but wanted to investigate since I have only seen a few of these plants in small clusters, never creating this appearance of a meadow.

The new leaves of glasswort are green, and the red coloration is thought to be brought on by the buildup of salt in its plump stems as the plant matures. As an annual, it goes out in a blaze of glory.

A few days later, I headed out in a twenty-two foot skiff that smoothly skimmed across the serene and placid waters on a windless day. As I set a westerly course along the channel of the Intracoastal Waterway, the smooth surface of the water was sliced open by the blade-like dorsal fin of a bottlenose dolphin. I slowed the boat and drifted along as a large pod methodically worked the water looking for fish. As each dolphin surfaced, the early morning silence was broken by the misty purging of air from its blowhole. A number of small young dolphins born this year could be seen sticking close to the side of an adult as if they were glued together. The seriousness of the group was broken from time to time as a few of the adults would leap completely out of the water and land with a showering splash. Reluctantly, I left the dolphins to go scout out the red plants, but I felt confident that they would still be around on the return trip.

As I passed under the shadow of the bridge, I began trimming the motor in anticipation of the shallow waters along the shore of the spoil island. With the boat securely anchored, I stepped into the knee deep warm water and waded up onto the bank of the island that was a small bluff of ancient oyster shells. The bluff was only about ten feet wide and the elevation dropped back down to a mud flat that looked like a cranberry bog. From ground level, the color of the red plants popped out against a backdrop of green marsh grass and maritime shrub thickets.

My suspicions about the plant were confirmed, glasswort plants had colonized this mucky mud flat that released an organic smell of rotted eggs after my foot falls disturbed the soil. The site was perfect for glasswort to thrive; it had the full beam of the sun all day long, was protected from the wave action of the waterway by the shell berm and was flooded with each high tide due to the low elevation on the backside of the island.

Glasswort is a type of plant known as a halophyte which can tolerate and thrive in areas with high salinity. There are close to 60 species that grow globally with a few of them, American, common and dwarf, found along the N.C. coast. They are collectively referred to as pickleweed, sea asparagus and in Europe as marsh samphire. These plants are a wetland

indicator species and are considered an obligate wetland species, which means that they will almost always occur in natural wetlands. These plants are one of first to show up in a protected tidal mud flat and create habitat for other species as well. This was evident by the presence of a white ibis stealthily prowling about in search of fiddler crabs. The presence of glasswort will eventually cause sediment to build up resulting in an elevation that will in turn be favorable for the pioneering of other plant species.

Out in the middle of this mud flat, almost all of the common glasswort plants were adorned with multiple periwinkle snails clinging to the base of their woody support stem. Each high tide will deposit a layer of algae and microbes on the glasswort stem that the periwinkle will consume by scraping away this biofilm with its rasp-like radula. The snails stop short of the fleshy scale-like leaves that have turned to a dark red color. The new leaves of this plant are green and the red coloration is thought to be brought on by the buildup of salt in its plump stems as the plant matures. As an annual, it goes out in a blaze of glory. The perennial American glasswort remains green throughout most of the year with the exception of red leaf tips that drop off from time to time.

Even though they have adapted to their salty environment, glasswort species do have a few defenses against the saline. Their roots are surrounded by a layer of oxygen that limits the amount of salt invasion and the tip of their segmented leaves will fall off to remove the highest concentration of salt. Their scientific Latin name, Salicornia, meaning “salty horn,” is a reference to their alkaline leaves. They also have thick waxy tubular leaves that curb the loss of fresh moisture in the plant from evaporation.

Bottlenose dolphin splash in the Intracoastal Waterway.

A white ibis hunts for fiddler crabs among the glasswort.

Some people think that the name glasswort is attributed to their segmented leaves that break off “like glass” due to the salt content or when clumsily handled. Actually, the plant was used in the earliest methods of making glass. Large quantities of the plant were burnt to create an ash that was used in the making of glass. The ashes yield sodium carbonate from all the salt in the plant. When making glass, the sodium carbonate allowed the silica to melt at a lower temperature. Soap makers also used the glasswort ash to improve the cleaning power of their products. Glasswort is loaded with over thirty percent of unsaturated oil (twice that of soybeans) which has stimulated research into its use as a biofuel crop. Early studies have yielded almost 100 gallons of oil per acre of glasswort. It is also being studied as an animal feed, which isn’t surprising since I have seen white-tailed deer grazing on the plant in the marsh.

But this plant that resembles the texture of the foot of a goose, and is in the goosefoot family of plants, is probably best thought of as a food. The new tender shoots have been harvested for centuries to be eaten raw in salads or boiled or steamed as a side dish similar to asparagus. It’s good for you too, full of vitamins A, B and C as well as minerals calcium, iron and iodine. The plant has been used historically to treat pain and swelling related to arthritis and rheumatism and its antioxidant properties are being studied.

As I headed back to the boat dock, I wondered if other motorists had noticed the crimson colored patch of vegetation from the bridge and were curious as to what it was. It is these curiosities that keep me fascinated and intrigued with the mysteries of our coast.

On occasion, I will receive reports of unusual animals making a rare appearance along our coastal barrier islands.

I usually don’t get too excited because the animal is often not what someone thinks it is or by the time I get to where it is located the creature has vanished. However, on a recent balmy evening I received an email from a reliable source reporting that a bird rare to North Carolina was within a mile of my house. Just across Bogue Inlet, from the point of Bogue Banks, several park ranger friends of mine had sighted a roseate spoonbill stalking the marshes of Bear Island.

Even with the cloudy skies, it was a busy day at the park for a Monday, with sunbathers, swimmers and beachcombers scattered along the strand. Heading east, I busied myself looking for sea shells along the wrack line even though the speed of the ATV made the shells appear as one long blurry line. The next day, I was gliding on the state park ferry over waters darkened by overcast skies in hopes of locating this wayward visitor. Ranger Sarah Kendrick joined me on the ferry and we were met at the dock by ranger Renee Evans. The rangers presented me with the kind offer to ride along with them in an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) to the area of the day before’s sighting. The ATV easily pulled through the loose powdery sand of the dune line as we made our way onto the wide, flat, low tide beach.

Ranger Evans maneuvered the ATV around the eastern point of Bear Island steering clear of the closed posted sections of the sand spit that are reserved for the colonial shore birds that had scratched out well-camouflaged nests. Least terns were busy overhead returning to the colony with fish for the newly hatched hungry chicks. When the vehicle stopped, we were staring directly at a low tidal flat at the edge of the Spartina marsh.

“This is where I saw it,” Evans said. The tidal flat was fed by a shallow tidal creek that cut through the marsh and became very narrow as it fell away in the opposite direction. The tide was still dropping, revealing numerous bowl-like depressions that trapped plenty of fish, shrimp and small blue crabs within. They were natural fish bowls.

A few great and snowy egrets were out looking for a meal, but it appeared that the spoonbill was not going to present an easy sighting. After waiting for a bit, we decided to hike out and around the marsh area to get above the tidal creek. As we hiked along, there was a noisy protest from a number of adult oyster catchers, willets and Wilson’s plovers. Since the area was tidal, it was unlikely that a nest was nearby. Most likely the parents had ushered their chicks into the shelter of the cooler marsh grass to avoid the heat of the day.

We decided to split up to increase our chance of finding the spoonbill. The rangers would hop back into the ATV to check another marsh area and I would continue walking a big loop around the entire marsh at the eastern point. Trudging along, the greenhead biting flies would at times torment me and the occasional oyster catcher would do a fly-by to indicate its displeasure with my presence with a fussy distress call. I would frequently stop to scan the marsh during this game of hide-and seek-to no avail.From this location we were able to walk a number of tidal creek mud flats that spilled out into Bogue Inlet. This is perfect habitat for the spoonbill looking for an easy “fish in a barrel” meal. As we meandered through the marsh, an eerie army of hundreds of thousands of fiddler crabs parted before us. A sharp clicking sound filled the air when their legs and shells collided as they climbed over each other racing ahead of our foot falls. In one of the tidal pools, a greedy blue crab was feeding on a small appetizer fiddler crab with one claw while holding a bigger main course fiddler in the other claw.

I was almost back to our original starting point at the tidal creek when I saw a willet dancing around and jabbing its long beak into a tidal pool. In an ironic twist of fate, a blue crab was now a link in the food chain as it was being subdued and eventually gulped down by the willet.

Rangers Kendrick and Evans arrived and I tossed my backpack into the bed of the ATV with a sense of defeat. We chatted for a few minutes, and then one of them exclaimed, “There it is!”

Looking down the tidal creek I saw a medium-sized white wading bird about a hundred yards away and dismissed it as a snowy egret. Evans said, “Not with all that pink.” Having an eyesight color deficiency, it is difficult for me to pick up red colors against a green marsh grass background.

Ranger Kendrick thrust a pair of binoculars in front of me and said, “It IS the spoonbill.”

And there it was, a roseate spoonbill on Bear Island.

These birds are not supposed to be here. They are in Florida, a few Gulf Coast states and Central and South America. I slowly and casually opened my backpack and prepared my camera with a long lens and monopod while managing to hold myself back from racing through the marsh screaming, “Look at the spoonbill!”

A check with the binoculars revealed a three-foot-tall, almost cartoonlike caricature of a bird with a long flat bill that looks like, well, a large wooden spoon. Its pale green head is as bald as Bozo the Clown with obvious ear openings protected with tufts of downy feathers and piercing blood-red eyes. The body looks like a fluffy ball of pink cotton candy standing on long, rose-colored legs. Their roseate coloration is the result of an organic pigment that is found in algae that their prey consumes. The juvenile birds are born with a head of white feathers that will eventually recede into the baldpate.

The spoonbill casually strolled down the empty tidal creek and out onto a mud flat covered with about half a foot of water. It began sweeping its long bill back and forth through the water. This sweeping method of feeding is used when the water is cloudy or at night when the bird cannot see the prey. The bill would remain partially open in an effort to feel prey with sensitive nerve endings located on the bill. When prey such as crabs, fish or shrimp come in contact with the bill, it will automatically snap shut capturing the food. With a sharp jerk of the head the prey is thrown into the back of the throat. The nostrils are located high up on the bill allowing the bird to easily breathe while probing deep into the water.

As it fed, a low grunting sound could be heard from time to time. We followed the bird as it flew short distances to other productive feeding areas. Here, in the shallow “fish bowls” the spoonbill could easily see the crabs and would just grab or peck with its large bill devouring the meal.

North Carolina is as far north as this species of spoonbill will venture. They have been spotted at Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge on the northern Outer Banks, at Twin Lakes in Sunset Beach and out on Ocean Isle Beach, and they have even been sighted at Riverbend Park in Catawaba County near Statesville, N.C. They can be found in fresh as well as salt water marshes and are the only spoonbill species (out of six) found in the Northern Hemisphere. Although this spoonbill was a loner, they are quite social and often found in groups, and they will mix in with other wading birds. A large group of spoonbills is referred to as a bowl.

During the 1800s, the roseate spoonbill was almost wiped out along with many other long-legged wading birds that were slaughtered for their plumage to adorn hats. The spoonbill feathers were specifically used in the making of hand fans and privacy screens. Conservation laws soon protected the birds and they have made a remarkable comeback. Today, even though their numbers are somewhat stable, they are threatened by the loss of feeding and breeding habitat.

Returning to Bear Island two days later, I searched for a few hours and was unsuccessful in locating the spoonbill. I walked out of the marsh, through the dune fields and out onto the low tide beach. As I hiked back to the dock I saw linear etchings in the sand. I ran my hand along the sand and came into contact with a hard object gliding partially submerged through the sand. Impatient for the return of the incoming tide, lettered olive gastropod mollusks were busting out of the hard-packed low tide sand and heading back towards the ocean and the soft, loose sand moistened by the incoming waves.

The enjoyment of a rare spoonbill sighting on Bear Island will last with me for a long time, but seeing these lettered olives fight their way back to the ocean was also an experience that I will not soon forget. If we just take the time to get out and explore nature, we will discover and experience that the normal existence of wildlife can be quite extraordinary.

Every morning, even before the first rays of sunlight peak over the horizon, beachcombers all along the coast are scouring the shoreline to discover the gifts that have washed up from the depths. It’s like a sandy version of an Easter egg hunt.

Seashells are the protective calcium carbonate exoskeleton that was once the home to different species of soft-bodied mollusks. The shells made by gastropods are the ones that have one opening that houses a snail like animal, such as a whelk. Bivalves, such as clams, are the shells that have two shells, which are hinged together.

The beauty and intriguing shapes of seashells have long been admired. They are scooped up off the beach and proudly displayed on the mantel. Anyone discovering a pretty shell cannot resist the urge to pick it up and take it home even though they may already have 20 shells of that particular species. I have seen enormous private collections. We have one here at the federation consisting of 15,000 shells that Dean and Dorothy Weber donated. It’s an addiction, I suppose.

These serious collectors even have an official sounding name, conchologist. One day we will probably see a reality show on television called Conch Hoarders. I should know, I was one once. However, a number of years ago I kept a few prized shells and scattered the rest along the beach in the dead of night. I would have loved to have seen the reaction of a groggy eyed beach walker stumbling across this windfall the next morning. Don’t get me wrong, I still love seashells and I am prone to backslide from time to time.

The Scotch bonnet is the Holy Grail of seashell collectors in North Carolina.

Underneath that pretty shell is a fierce predator. The animal that lives in the shell excretes sulfuric acid to weaken the armor of sand dollars. The Scotch bonnet then feasts on this exposed tissue. Photos: Sam Bland

Everybody has their favorite shell, but in North Carolina, the Holy Grail of seashells seems to be the Scotch bonnet. As I was working on this story a coworker exclaimed “I’ve been looking for 12 years and still haven’t found a whole one.”

The Scotch bonnet was first described in scientific literature in 1778 and was named for its coloration pattern that has the appearance of Scottish tartan fabric. The shape of the shell is also said to resemble the traditional Scottish wool bonnet called a Tam o’Shanter. When speaking of the Scotch bonnet make sure that you impress your friends by pronouncing the word bonnet as “bonay.”

Scotch bonnets are found along the East Coast from North Carolina to Florida and their range extends to Brazil. These mollusks like tropical water and are found in water depths of 50 to 150 feet. Even though near and inshore water temperatures can get cool during the winter, the toasty waters of the nearby Gulf Stream create perfect habitat for this invertebrate. This is why the N.C. hot spot for Scotch bonnets and shelling in general is from Cape Hatters to Cape Lookout. Ocracoke Island has even been rated as one of the top shelling beaches by Coastal Living Magazine.

Female Scotch bonnets will deposit thousands of eggs in the spring that are then fertilized by the male. The eggs will hatch into free swimming planktonic larvae that are widely dispersed by ocean currents. After 14 weeks a shell has developed and the animal then begins its life on the sandy ocean floor.

As they grow, they begin to take on their elegant shape and can be 2-4 inches in length. Their base color can be from white to cream with the overlaying yellow and brown tartan pattern. The coloration is striking on the living animal or a very fresh empty shell. Once on the beach and in the sun the colors quickly fade. This delicate shell easily breaks in the tumbling surf with the dome usually getting damaged, leaving imperfect shells scattered along the beach to frustrate collectors.

Underneath their beauty, Scotch bonnets are fierce predators. They will cover a sand dollar or keyhole urchin with their soft body and excrete an enzyme of sulfuric acid to weaken the outer armor and expose the flesh. Then, using a tongue-like proboscis that has the texture of a wood rasp, they will consume the tissue. As prey, Scotch bonnets fall victim to the brutal claw crushing power of stone crabs and blue crabs.

North Carolina is proud of the Scotch bonnet. So proud, that with the urging of the N.C. Shell Club, the state General Assembly saw fit to anoint the Scotch bonnet as the official state shell in 1965. The Scotch bonnet was chosen as a way to recognize the contributions of the early Scottish settlers who came to North Carolina.

Getting this bill passed, however, wasn’t without debate. The state representative from Dare County presented the bill to his colleagues for consideration. To win approval of the bill the representative tempted his fellow lawmakers with a pledge to provide each of them that supported the bill with a Scotch bonnet as a token of appreciation. Feeling confident that the bill would pass, the representative attempted to collect close to 200 shells, he found two. Upon learning this, his fellow statesmen became wary to enthusiastically support this lofty designation on a shell so few would ever see. One senator even joked that he was going to propose the egg shell as the official shell of his home county. Undaunted, the representative continued lobbying and the bill eventually passed.

After the bill passed, a state senator from Beaufort, who sponsored the bill in the N.C. Senate, provided a container of the Scotch bonnet shells for his fellow senators. Thus, this humble mollusk not only became the official State Shell of North Carolina, it was the first such designation of a state shell in the United States. Maybe we should change our license plate motto to “First in Official Seashells.”

So take your pick of over 300 miles of sandy N.C. beaches to search for a Scotch bonnet. If you do find one, I bet you won’t be able to leave it on the shore.

Gannets, like this juvenile, have beautiful glacier blue eyes that are highlighted with a ring of blue flesh. This ring is so prominent that the bird is also called the “spectacled goose.” Photo: Sam Bland.

EMERALD ISLE — I recently headed out for a predawn jog and abandoned the roads for the pleasure of the sandy beach at low tide. A brisk north wind had rendered the ocean surface lifeless except for the small, crystal clear waves that were only breaking once they reached the shore. The cool temperature was accompanied by a steel gray sky that was wringing out a steady drizzle.

Mile after mile the beach was a mine, not a soul in sight, not even footprints. Even though the beach was void of people, it was far from lonely. The glassy surf allowed a bottlenose dolphin to keep pace with me, swimming horizontal to the beach in a trough just a few yards from shore, so close that I could hear it exhale. Just beyond the outer sand bar another dolphin playfully leaped out of the water so many times that I lost count.

Looking down the beach I could see in the distance a very large white bird flying towards me just over the ocean. For a moment I thought it might be a tundra swan heading to one of the big lakes in the eastern part of the state. However, as the bird got closer I could see black wing tips and I then began to think it might be one of the white pelicans that have been seen recently seen flying over the White Oak River.  Just as it was overhead, the bird banked hard to the right and began soaring back out over the ocean. I now had a good enough look to know that this white bird with wing tips dipped in black was a northern gannet.

The northern gannet is a big sea bird that spends its life out on the open ocean. It only comes ashore during the breeding and nesting season. Photo: Sam Bland.

The northern gannet is a big sea bird that spends its life out on the open ocean. It only comes ashore during the breeding and nesting season. They are found in the North Atlantic, down the U.S. East Coast, south to the Caribbean and over into the Gulf of Mexico.

Their nesting colonies are only in the North Atlantic where they are also very abundant along the European coast of Great Britain and Ireland where huge colonies nest along the shear rocky cliffs that tower over the ocean. Gannets were once so plentiful along this coast that in the old English poem Beowulf the Danish King Hrothgar described the ocean as “a gannet’s bath.” They also nest along the coast of Newfoundland and Bonaventure, Quebec.

The mating pair will produce only one egg and feed the chick regurgitated fish. Even though the rocky cliffs provide a safe haven from predators, such as foxes, it is a daunting launching site for the chicks when they are ready to fledge. Pushing away from the cliff, the chicks will half fly and half fall down to the ocean below. They will swim away from the island and live off fat reserves for about two weeks until they master the awkward skills of take offs and landings on the open water.

The juveniles are gray with white specks and will eventually have the snowy white plumage of an adult in a few years and will begin breeding in five years. Gannets have beautiful glacier blue eyes that are highlighted with a ring of blue flesh. This ring is so prominent that the bird is also called the “spectacled goose.”

As I watched the gannet I realized why it made the abrupt turn away from the surf and out over the open water where dolphin were scouting a school of fish. There it joined a large white swirling tornado cloud of gannets feeding on a school of surface fish, menhaden, most likely. The gannets looked like Kamikaze pilots raining from the sky and into the water from great heights. They take on the shape of an arrow with their straight bill and neck and their wings stretched out along their sides. This aerodynamic form quickly becomes hydrodynamic as the bird slices into the water to capture the fish. If the initial dive is unsuccessful they will swim using their webbed feet and wings as deep as 70 feet to pursue the fish. When they surface, the fish is already in their throat and they will clumsily run along the surface of the water to take off and rejoin the feeding frenzy.

Northern gannets join other birds feasting on menhaden off the beach at Emerald Isle. Photo: Sam Bland.

Gannet populations are pretty stable now, but it hasn’t always been that way. Daredevils once scaled the steep rock cliffs to reach nesting sites where they harvested the eggs and chicks, which were then sold in the markets as a delicacy. Even today, limited traditional harvest is allowed in parts of the United Kingdom. The taste is described as fishy. Adult gannets were also once hunted to use their body fat as a treatment for gout and to render the fat into a mechanical lubricant.

In April 2012, an amazing northern gannet sighting occurred at the Fallon Islands off the coast of California. This was the first recorded northern gannet in the Pacific Ocean and is thought to be an indication of global warming. Gannets stay out over the open ocean water and do not venture over land. Warmer global temperatures have resulted in much of the Northwest Passage to be free of ice. Thus, it is assumed that this gannet left from the north Atlantic and followed the open water of the Northwest Passage out into the Bering Sea and then migrated south into the Pacific Ocean.

Gannets are often overlooked by the casual observer and thought to be just another gull. So next time you are going for an early morning or late afternoon walk on the beach, lookout over the ocean for the solitary gannet gliding gracefully above the ocean or for the busy commotion of a flock of gannets plunging after a meal.

A monarch butterfly sips on the nectar of a goldenrod to fatten up before setting off on a long migration to Mexico. Photo: Sam Bland.

A welcomed high-pressure system dropped down from the north a couple of weeks ago and brought cooler air to represent the arrival of fall. Along the way, the wind corralled a bunch of monarch butterflies and gave them a breeze to ride on as they began their annual migration.

While out on a bicycle ride that morning, I counted hundreds of these butterflies decked out in their Halloween colors of orange and black. The day before I only saw one monarch. They fluttered along and provided some butterfly diversity as they mingled with the yellow cloudless sulfurs and orange gulf fritillaries seeking out nectar from the new goldenrod blooms.

The monarchs will slurp up nectar using their long proboscis to fatten up and actually gain weight as they make their way to wintering grounds high in the mountain forests of central Mexico. It is thought that taking advantage of the wind currents during migration allows the Monarch to conserve fat supplies that will be crucial to survival as they endure the winter. Monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains will head to Mexico and those west of the Rockies will winter in southern California.

Two factors require monarchs to migrate: They cannot tolerate freezing temperatures and their host plant, milkweed, is not available year round.

Due to the magnitude of their annual migration, monarchs are dispersed from northern Mexico to southern Canada and they inhabit almost all of North America and are found in other parts of the world as well. This wide range of distribution earned it the name monarch. Entomologist Samuel Scudder was the first to document the name in 1847, because as he put it, “it is one of the largest of our butterflies, and rules a vast domain.” The monarch was also called King Billy by settlers in honor of King William III of England.

It takes four generations of monarchs to complete the annual migration. In the spring, the monarchs that overwintered in Mexico will head north and the females will search out their host plant, milkweed, to lay eggs on one at a time. When they land on a plant they will use their legs to scratch the plant and chemoreceptors will taste the plant juices to confirm that it is the correct plant. This egg will produce a caterpillar that will feed on the milkweed plant which contains a secret weapon against predators. By eating the milkweed, the caterpillar and subsequent adult butterfly have a chemical called cardenolide in their bodies. When predators such as birds, frogs and lizards eat a monarch, they get sick and usually throw up. This experience is bad enough that they remember the bright orange and black colors and avoid targeting the monarch for a meal.

Tagging butterflies helps determine where they came from. Photo: Sam Bland.

The first three generations travel northward and each generation lives only about six weeks. By then they are dispersed well into northern areas, and the fourth generation of adult monarchs are crawling out of their chrysalis in late summer. This generation will not mate until spring after they have migrated and survived the winter. Unlike the first three generations, the final generation can live up to eight months.

Following ancient instinctual urgings, the monarch’s southward march is triggered by dropping temperatures and shorter daytime hours. During their migratory journey, a number of these insects will be captured and fitted with a tag to help unlock some of their mysteries. A research program known as Monarch Watch, under the direction of the University of Kansas, uses volunteers, teaches, researchers and students to collect data to learn details of their southward movement.

On a number of occasions, I have been one of the people trying to snag these slippery elusive butterflies. I can testify that few things can make you feel and look more foolish than trying to net a butterfly that seems to be toying with you. You must be able to run with the direction of a squirrel on a roadway during rush hour while swinging a net at imaginary ghosts. Most of my netting attempts captured only air. After miraculously netting one of the butterflies, I would carefully remove it from the net and hope that it would not escape from my gentle grasp. I would take note of the butterfly’s sex — the male has two obvious black “pouches” on the dorsal side of their hindwing — and then apply the tag.

Now when I tell people that I have tagged butterflies, they laugh, thinking that I’m joking. I assume that their imagination immediately visualizes a heavy metal band on their thin wispy leg that would weigh it down like a bowling ball. The tag is actually a small all-weather ultra-light decal that is applied, or stuck, on the ventral side of their hindwing. The decal has a unique six symbol code of letters and numbers as well as reporting information. As the tagged butterflies make their way to Mexico and eventually reach their special overwintering site, they will be observed or found dead. Hopefully the person who observes or recovers the tag code will report it to Monarch Watch. This information is used to help determine mortality and thus, population trends. The data is also scrutinized by researchers to learn more about their navigation, the migratory corridors that they use and the impacts of weather.

Monarchs cling to sea oats behind sand dunes. Photo: Sam Bland.

For many years, the location of their wintering site was a mystery. Then in the 1970’s biologists found them in the misty transvolcanic mountains of Mexico, hanging by the millions in a small section of oyamel fir trees. Why here? Well this spot has all the essential elements that allow them to survive. At close to 10,000 feet, the site is cool enough, without freezing, that the monarchs do not metabolize and, thus, conserve their fat reserves. The forest is frequently covered in clouds and fog which keep the insects moist and provides water to drink. Finally, the surrounding forest forms a protective buffer from high winds during storms. This site, known as the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, is so special that it has been designated as a World Heritage Site to protect the 60 million to one billion monarchs that spend the winter there.

One of my most successful outings tagging monarchs was on a late October day after a cold front passed through leaving a chilly layer of 50 degree air over the barrier islands. I went to one of my favorite monarch sites, a sand dune covered in a blanket of sea oats and goldenrod. The cool air had grounded an entire fleet of these cold-blooded insects, hundreds of them clinging to the vegetation like Christmas tree ornaments. Without a net, I easily plucked them off, applied the tag and gingerly placed them back. Once, under the hazy influence of “monarch-xide,” I jumped off the tailgate of a moving pickup truck to capture a monarch that had already been tagged. This butterfly had traveled from Cape May Point, N. J. to Bear Island along our coast in eight days, averaging 40 miles a day.

Monarch Watch has started a number of programs to help monarchs overcome their vulnerability to insecticides, herbicides and loss of habitat. Their Monarch Waystation and Bring Back the Monarch programs create fields of milkweed and flowering habitat at schools, public lands and residential landscaping.

It may not be as spectacular as thousands of thundering hooves of wildebeest pounding over the Masai Mara, but the fall migration of the monarch is one of the world’s greatest wildlife spectacles. These tiny insects will fly over two thousand miles and as they begin to reach their final destination, groups will merge together and form into great clouds of butterflies.

How they locate their wintering grounds is not really known. Scientists speculate about magnetic fields, sun orientation, a chemical compass and a sun clock in their antennae.

As they settle in on the fir trees to take their rest, the local cultures celebrate their arrival of the monarch which coincides with the Day of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos holiday. It is believed that monarchs represent the souls of ancestors coming back to earth for a visit.

The bird’s mottled coloring allows it to blend into the background. Photo: Sam Bland.

I was awakened recently in the middle of the night by a driving rain storm so ferocious that it sounded like it was raining pennies on the windows of my house. Fortunately, I was able to go back to sleep until my alarm clock, which is my cat, woke me right on time to get up and head out for my morning exercise.

As I pulled on my running shoes, a new sound now reached my ears, a steady pulsating murmur that was coming from outside. With all the rain, I knew exactly what creature was producing this melody. As I opened the front door, a rush of moist humid hot air greeted me along with a deafening joyous chorus of green tree frogs. You could actually feel the vibrations of their calls. The wetlands on and near my property were full with water and amphibians were quite happy to have their habitat wet again after a long period of little rain.

It was still dark out as I started my run and after a half mile down the road I could still hear the rowdy frogs. As I jogged on, the songs from the frogs began to fade away and were replaced with other predawn sounds of nature.

Off in the distance I could hear a familiar bird call. A three part call that to me, sounds primal. The first part of the call, the “chuck”, is a click of the bill which is much quieter than the other two parts and is only heard if the bird is sitting on your head. Well, that’s an exaggeration, but the bird needs to be close by. If you are unable to hear the first part of the call you might be fooled into misidentifying this secretive bird. The second two parts of the call are a loud and clear “will’s-widow”. But without the “chuck” it is often mistaken for a whip-poor-will.

Only the male will call to attract a potential mate or to stake out breeding territory. They can pump out 15-30 calls a minute and have been known to call out up to 800 times without stopping.

The call of the Chuck-will’s-widow is one of my favorites, as long as it is in the distance. I once had a Chuck-will’s-widow belt out a repetitive performance just outside my bedroom window during the middle of the night that had me considering throwing a shoe into the tree to shoo it off.

A Chuck-will’s–widow is pretty much inactive during the day. It will sit undetected on the horizontal branches of trees waiting for the sun to set. When this bird settles in on a branch, their cryptic pattern of mottled brown, gray, black and white feathers provides camouflage that allows it to vanish into the tree. At dark, they will take to the skies in pine woods and around marshes searching out flying insects such as moths and beetles. They have even been known to eat bats. Their eyes are adapted with reflective membranes which proved great night vision for hunting in the dark. If their eyes catch the headlights from a car, they will shine a vivid orange similar to the glowing eyes of some mammals.

Long pointed wings allow them to maneuver quickly as they dart around obstacles chasing the prey. Even though they have a short bill, their mouth can open up quite wide and is equipped with long rigid feathers, called rictal bristles, which funnel the prey into their big mouth. These bristles are evidently pretty important to the bird. Their middle toe is specially adapted into a comb-like structure that is used to preen the bristles, keeping them in proper working order.

When nesting, the female will simply lay the eggs on the ground among the floor litter of leaves or pine needles. While sitting on the nest, her camouflage will render the nest undetectable. Yet, if the nest is somehow disturbed, she will pick up the eggs in her mouth, and one at a time, and move them to a new location.

Due to their nighttime activities, the Chuck-will’s-widow is in a family of birds known as the nightjars. This is because of their nocturnal nature and their call, which can be considered a jarring sound when they call out unexpectedly on a quiet night. This family of birds has also been known as goatsuckers due to an old, strange myth that even had the Greek philosopher Aristotle fooled. In ancient Greece, shepherds tending their goats at night thought that the Chuck-will’s-widow would fly in and suck milk from the udders of goats. The birds were actually flying around the goats scooping up insects that were attracted to the goats. Part of their scientific name is even derived from Latin words that mean “goat milker.”

As I continued my run, I was eventually so close to the bird that I could hear the complete call, “chuck-will’s-widow.” I stopped and began scanning the horizontal tree branches and as the first light of the sun created crisp outlines of the pine trees in the stillness of a new day, I was finally able to spot the silhouette of the bird on a branch about twenty feet up. Unconcerned with my presence, it continued calling a loud, “chuck-will’s-widow, chuck-will’s-widow”, over and over and over. I ran off down the road with the song fading in the distance.

An oyster catcher chick stays close to its parent. Photo: Sam Bland

A few weeks ago, I headed over to Bear Island at Hammocks Beach State Park near Swansboro to accompany my friend, Ranger Sarah Kendrick, in surveying shorebird nesting activity on the island. As we headed down the beach, an elegant black skimmer acted as our escort, gracefully gliding an inch or two above the water with its hair-trigger bill waiting to snap down on an unsuspecting fish.

Reaching the low, wide sandy spit of sand that is greeted by Bogue Inlet at the east end of the island, we notice that quite a few of the dainty least terns had already established scrapes in the sand and are sitting on eggs. The mating pairs are taking turns incubating the eggs and hunting for food. These birds perform acrobatic aerial maneuvers plunging head first into the water after small surface fish. Their tiny splash would make any Olympic diver envious. But the artistic disposition of their feeding flight is in stark contrast to the flight pattern employed to protect their eggs or chicks. Resembling a fighter jet, these terns will conduct fast swooping dives, lock in on their target and use their beak as a weapon. Anyone venturing too close to a nest or tern chick will be rewarded with a bloody scalp missing a tuft of hair. Since terns are colonial nesters, the whole group will join in to drive off any intruder; there is safety in numbers.

 Scanning the tern colony with binoculars, we notice a larger black and white bird with bright yellow eyes and a long orange bill snuggled into the sand in a nesting posture. It was an American oyster catcher, nesting among the least terns to take advantage of their protective nature. A good number of oyster catchers nest on inactive oyster shell outcroppings that are found throughout the marsh waters behind the island. But in recent history, it has been rare for oyster catchers to nest on the sand spits at either end of the island.

Using a spotting scope, Kendrick was able to determine that the bird was sitting on three eggs. The gray eggs with brown speckles are well camouflaged in a shallow scrape decorated with bits and pieces of broken sea shells. Happily surprised, we hop back into the truck to check out the nesting activity at the west end of Bear Island bordered by Bear Inlet. The suitable nesting habitat at this end of the island is quite smaller, but we quickly notice least terns, Wilson plovers and willets, all exhibiting nesting behavior. Then tucked up near the base of a small dune we discover another oyster catcher sitting on two eggs. I know for most people this is no big deal, but for us, the prospect of baby oyster chicks scurrying about was quite exciting.

With our reconnaissance work completed, it was time for me to head home. Kendrick promised to give me a call as soon as the chicks chipped their way out of their speckled enclosures. As I drove home I realistically knew that the possibility of seeing any chicks was remote. It would be difficult for the eggs to go undetected by predators such as raccoons, foxes and even rat snakes that prowl the dunes eager to make a meal of bird eggs.

Forgetting about the oyster catcher eggs, a few weeks passed until I received a phone call. I was preparing to take an afternoon slumber when the phone rang and I let the answering machine serve as my proxy. A familiar voice told of chicks out and about being fed by the parents. I drove to the park in record time and raced from the parking lot down to the ferry dock. But alas, seeing the chicks was not meant to be, the ferry was pulling away from the dock. With the boat leaving, I gave a halfhearted wave of desperation for the boat to come back. Then the boat slowed down and turned, the captain generously returned to the dock and let me climb aboard. I gave the captain a big “thank you,” but I could tell that I wasn’t the first knucklehead to miss the boat.

Kendrick met me at the dock on the other side and we were soon scouring at the nesting area with a spotting scope looking for the chicks. Conspicuous as always, the parents were easy to spot. The chicks were close by, tucked away under a small clump of beach grass to take advantage of what little shade they could find. Looking through the long lens of my camera, they appeared to be sleeping. After a while, they began to stir and were soon wandering about. Even though they hatched only a day earlier, these precocious chicks were already venturing out with their parents and learning their new life.

The chicks look disproportionate with their long legs, but they were very steady on their feet and able to run like a sprinter. Compared to their parents, the bill on the chicks did not look out of place. It will take about sixty days for the bill to reach Pinocchio status and be useful for feeding. Until then, the parents will feed the chicks.

As their name implies, oyster catchers like to eat oysters. An oyster catcher will use the blade-like bill to reach into a slightly opened oyster. Once the bill is inside the shell, the damage is done and so is the oyster. It may not seem like it, but eating bivalves can be risky. Oyster catchers have been reported to drown when a bivalve puts the squeeze on their beak and the tide rolls in. They will also eat other bivalves, worms, crabs and urchins.

Of the two oyster catcher nests, only the nest with the two eggs hatched out, the three eggs in the other nest most likely were victimized by a predator since the chicks were never seen. Hopefully they also hatched out and the chicks were guided undetected to the safety of the nearby marsh grass.

As with many other shorebirds, oyster catcher populations took a nose dive in the late 1800’s when they were hunted for food and their feathers were used to adorn garments. Today, oyster catchers face different threats. Development along our barrier islands has reduced the amount of suitable habitat, crowded beaches discourage nesting and poor water quality has diminished food sources.

The preservation of jewels like Bear Island is important to the survival of oyster catchers and other shorebirds. But it is also necessary to have these natural wonders where we can observe these creatures that nourish our spirit.

A few weeks ago I found myself in the blue crab town of Belhaven where clear blue skies encouraged the local seafood vendors to market their fresh catch along the shoulders of the main road. The circumstances of my journey allowed about one and a half hours of free time before I needed to depart for home.

Belhaven lies along the shores of the Pungo River and is awfully close to one of my favorite nature havens, Pungo National Wildlife Refuge. Temptation got the best of me and I raced off to the refuge knowing that I would only have, at best, an hour in the refuge before I needed to attend to my other commitments.

Timber rattlesnakes have a docile reputation, which is why they were the favorite of religious snake handlers. Photo: Sam Bland

Road construction detours turned my bee-line to Pungo Lake into what felt like following the path of a drunken cow.  This reduced my free time to about 45 minutes. Once in the refuge, I took quick glances, but pretty much ignored the bald eagles, white-tailed deer, nutria and a parade of butterflies as I headed straight to the north lake road to search for black bear.

Overhead, the blue skies were captured by dark, moody storm clouds that teased with the threat of rain that never materialized. I grabbed my raincoat anyway and headed out with a stiff wind nudging me down the path. Down the road a ways, I could see that a sturdy tree branch had been blown down and was stretched across the road. I had just walked past the branch when my mind processed that the branch must have just completed metamorphosis and it was now a long, thick snake. I must have done a pretty impressive snake scare sprint because when I looked back I was quite a ways down the path from the snake. I’m just glad I didn’t pull a muscle. I love snakes, but when I see one unexpectedly, fight or flight kicks in and flight always wins.

With my breathing under control, I walked back to observe this beautiful creature. True to its reputation, this timber rattler was docile and calm while keeping a watchful eye on my movements as its forked tongue flicked about trying to pick up my scent. A timber rattler is reluctant to bite or even use its rattle. When provoked, however, it will defend itself. This demeanor is why it became the symbol of the American Revolution.  Due to its calm disposition and hesitation to bite, the timber rattler became a favorite of religious snake handlers intent on following the directions set forth in Mark 16:17-18: “They shall take up serpents.”

The coastal pocosin landscape surrounding Pungo Lake is perfect habitat for the timber rattlesnake to prey on small mammals. They will find chemical clues left behind by animals to select an ambush site where they will lay-in-wait. Specially adapted with a sixth sense, pit vipers utilize temperature sensitive organs located behind their nostrils. This snake can detect prey and strike out like a heat-seeking missile in total darkness. Their long fangs will inject toxic venom that will immobilize the prey.

The snake flicks its tongue to pick up Sam’s scent.

Its rattle, nature best early-warning signal, is made of keratin, the same as our hair and fingernails. Photos: Sam Bland

Timber rattlers are known to have geographic variations in the composition of their venom. Four different venom types are found throughout their range. One venom is a neurotoxin that effects circulation and respiratory functions, another is a hemotoxin that destroys tissue and causes internal bleeding, a third is a combination of the two and the fourth is a weak version without compounds found in the other venom types.

Annoyed with my presence, the timber rattler finally half-heartedly presented a weak rattle as a signal for me to back off. Respectfully, I did. It began to lazily undulate its body and slide into some tall grass where its cryptic camouflage made it seem to disappear. It was now completely in its element and my attempt to get one last close look was greeted with a rattle that sounded like a group of grade school kids with brand new maracas in music class. Dancing at 50 beats per second, the rattle did its job and I backed off into the next county.

The rattle is made up of keratin, same as our hair and fingernails, and is comprised of numerous hollow segments. Each time the snake sheds its skin a new segment is added to create one of nature’s most effective early-warning systems.

As I continued to watch, the last I saw of the snake was its erect rattle slaloming through the tall grass before it vanished. I checked the time and couldn’t believe that my forty five minutes had already expired.

And yes, I did see what I came here for, one last fortuitous glance down the north lake road, a black bear ambling casually along.

During the winter months, I often take advantage of the cooler temperatures and the lack of pesky insects to hike through the interior of our undeveloped barrier islands: Bear Island, Shackleford Banks and Core Banks.

As I walk among the island shrub thickets, I am usually accompanied by yellow-rumped warblers (Dendroica coronata). The wax myrtle bushes are alive with yellow-rumps flitting about from branch to branch with sharp, crisp chirps splitting the air.

Affectionately known as “butter butts” because of their obvious yellow rump feathers, the birds seem to magically appear overnight in large numbers during late fall. In the eastern half of the United States, the yellow-rumped subspecies is also known as the myrtle warbler and as the Audubon’s warbler in the western states. It is thought that these two different types of yellow-rumps came about when they developed different physical characteristics after being separated by glaciers during the last ice age, 20,000 or so years ago.

We know spring has arrived when yellow-rumped warblers no longer frequent our bird feeders. Photo: Sam Bland

This plentiful, active, small songbird breeds in the dense coniferous forests of Alaska, Canada and in the western states. Like other songbirds, they will migrate south to spend the winter in milder climates. However, it can winter farther north than any other warbler due to its specially adapted digestion system. During much of the year, it will feed on a variety of abundant insects such as caterpillars, beetles, spiders, ants and mosquitoes.

However, during the winter when the insects are hard to find, these birds will feast on the berries produced by wax myrtles (hence, the name myrtle warbler), bay trees and Virginia creeper. As protection from the harsh salt spray that blows in off the ocean, the berries are wrapped with a waxy coating. Unlike other warblers, yellow-rumped warblers possess a special enzyme that allows them to digest the waxy coating covering the berries and thus receive nutrients from the berries. Since this food source is also available further north, the birds don’t need to migrate so far south in search of food. Consumption of these berries by the yellow rumps is beneficial for these plants since they will help disperse their seeds.

A wintering flock of yellow-rumped warblers will frequently call out with a chirp to keep in contact with each other while foraging. Soon, the yellow rumps will be migrating back north to mate and raise a couple of broods. While in flight as they migrate, the birds will also use the chirping call to keep the flock together during their long journey.

These little birds usually stay deep in the cover of the shrub thickets; however, a pishing sound will easily coax a yellow-rump to an exposed perch, offering a great look at these winter visitors.

Throw some sunflower seeds in the bird feeder. That will help fatten up the butter-butts for their journey north. When they have departed, we will know that spring is here.

I have observed many serious beachcombers strolling along the high tide line in what I call the “sea shell shuffle” in search of oceanic prizes cast upon the sandy shores by the spilling waves. In a zombie-like trance, beachcombers appear inebriated as they slowly shuffle in a zig zag pattern with their head downward and upper body swaying from side to side. Then suddenly, sobriety returns as their shelling radar locks in on a target causing them to swiftly walk in a bee line to the object. A squeal of pleasure is often heard over the crashing waves as the item is examined, especially if a starfish is the object of attention.

Many stuffy marine biologists would scoff at the term “starfish” since this animal is not a fish at all. The scientifically correct prefer “sea star.” By whatever name, the animal is a type of invertebrate, similar to sand dollars and sea urchins, that are known as echinoderms. Many echinoderms have a rough, tough spiny outer layer that provides protection from predators. The term echinoderm is actually Greek for “hedgehog skin”.

Sea stars can also breathe through tiny structures called papillae that are on the surface of the skin. If these breathing structures become obstructed with seaweed or other debris, the common sea star uses small pincer-like organs, called pedicellaria, to pluck off any undesired objects.

As more carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere, more ends up in our oceans. Even though these calcifying organisms rely on the carbon in the ocean, too much carbon dioxide makes the ocean more acidic. Research suggests that increased acidity could impact the ability of sea stars and other echinoderms to produce calcium carbonate and eventually reduce their role as a carbon sink. It’s important that we have these natural carbon sponges that help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

Flushed now to an exposed perch, I could only see the silhouette of its uniquely shaped body through the gathering darkness. Its large crested head included a long, stout pointed bill and a stubby body with very short legs. This distinctive shape and coloration is not easily forgotten. Sporting a slate blue head, wings and back, the kingfisher has a white chest and belly with a blue neck band. The female is a bit showier and flaunts an additional reddish chest band. A legend contends that the band was scorched across the breast of the first female kingfisher when she flew too close to the sun.

The belted kingfisher (Ceryle alcyon) primarily eats fish, but has also been known to eat crabs, insects and even lizards. It uses two methods to find prey –patrolling or perching. The kingfisher will patrol a stretch of clear water, scanning for surface fish. It will hover, acquire the target and dive head first into the water. The bird then spreads its wings to keep from going too deep into the water. From a stationary perch near water, such as a dock railing or piling, a kingfisher will sit as motionless as stone then launch itself headlong after the prey.

Once a fish is firmly pinched in its powerful bill, the bird will return to a favorite perch to consume the meal. But first, to prevent the slick mucus covered fish from squirting out of its grasp, the
kingfisher will pound the liveliness out of the fish on a hard object. It will then position the fish head first and gulp it down. I was once on a boat tour conducting a birding program when a kingfisher began patrolling a section of marsh water near the boat. I had just finished presenting the group with detailed information about their hunting technique when the kingfisher slowed to a hover right next to the boat. It then plunged into the water with a splash, then promptly flew onto
the boat rail, pounded the fish a few times on the rail and then flew away. The passengers all turned and looked at me in stunned silence.

The belted kingfisher is a year-round resident in much of the United States and can be seen along rivers, streams, lakes and fresh or salt water marshes. A male will try to impress a potential mate with the presentation of a fish. He will approach in a low posture with his wings dropped, as if a man on one knee wearing a cape, then stretches the offering out before a female.

A kingfisher pair will mate for life and build a nest on a steep dirt bank near water. The pair will use their chisel-like bill to mine a tunnel into the bank. As their work progresses deeper, they will use their specially adapted feet (with two toes fused together) to shovel out the material. The tunnel will gradually slope upward for about eight feet and end in a wider nest chamber that can accommodate the chicks and parents. The upward slope of the tunnel will prevent any water from
flooding the nest. If a predator ventures to close to the nest entrance the female parent might flutter about on the surface of the water below the nest to distract the intruder. The chicks are born naked and helpless and hardly resemble a bird, but in a little over two weeks they are covered in plumage and look much like the parent.

As their name implies, kingfishers are experts when it comes to hunting their favorite prey. Native Americans believed that tying kingfisher feathers to their bows would cause the arrow to fly as true
as a kingfisher to a fish. To become a master at fishing, the young chicks must enroll in fishing practice with the parents acting as coaches. The parent will catch, then subdue a fish and fly to a perch where the chicks are eagerly waiting for a handout. After a quick tease, the parent will drop the fish into the water below, forcing the chick to dive in after it. With a couple weeks of practice, the chicks graduate to fishing on their own and will soon disperse to claim and actively defend a fishing territory of their own.

The kingfisher is prominent in many legends, myths and stories from various cultures. According to Native American folklore, the feathers on top of the kingfishers head didn’t always form a crest. Old Man, a mythical creator god, was left alone in the cold snowy woods when his hunting companion, Wolf, fell through the river ice while chasing otters. Old Man cried and wailed at the thought of being left alone. Kingfisher, sitting high on a branch witnessed the whole thing, and
laughed at the crying Old Man, who swung his club in anger at Kingfisher, The blow merely grazed the head feathers causing them to stand on end, creating the crest.

In Greek mythology there are a few versions of how the first pair of kingfishers was created. All of the stories pretty much agree that Zeus was displeased with Ceyx and his wife, Alcyone. When Ceyx was at sea, Zeus threw a lightning bolt at the ship causing it to sink resulting in the death of Ceux. Distraught, Alcyone went to the sea to drown herself to be with Ceyx. In a show of mercy, the gods changed them both into kingfishers so that they could be together. The kingfisher was then
known as the Halcyon Bird and the gods would calm the seas for fourteen days near the winter solstice so that Alcyone, now a bird, could care for her eggs that floated on a nest at sea. This time of year is known as the Halcyon Days and represents a tranquil time of peace and calm.
Thus, old mariners always felt that the sight of a kingfisher would protect them from storms and calm the seas.

Everybody probably remembers the fable by Aesop about the tortoise and the hare. Well, what about the sea turtle and the hare! Just kidding, but we do have a type of hare that lives in our coastal waters, just not the kind of four legged hare that you are probably thinking of.

Sea hares are without a doubt one of the most intriguing animals you will ever encounter.  Anyone that has spent time wading the shallow beach and marsh waters has most likely come across what appears to be a pulsating blob of mottled brown flesh slowly and steadily swimming by. Most people view sea hares with caution, concern and sometimes disgust and give them a wide berth. This could be from the misconception that has its roots in ancient Greece that a person would die if they touched a sea hare.

Young kids however, are fascinated and drawn to the sea hare like a magnet. I once observed a young boy in the marsh waters behind Bear Island meandering along staring intently into the water.  To no one in particular he loudly exclaimed, “I love these things.” I instinctively
knew what produced this proclamation of joy. The boy then reached down and gently stroked the sea hare as it moved along.

Sea hares are marine gastropod mollusks that do not have an external shell and resemble a big 8- to 10-inch garden slug. They do have a soft thin calcified shell that protects their heart and gill. It is embedded into the mantle and can partially be seen on their dorsal side.

The philosopher Aristotle has been credited with naming the sea hare due to a pair of body parts that, with an active imagination, resembles the long ears of a hare. These are actually head tentacles called rhinophores, which are sensory organs that can detect dissolved chemicals in the water. This gives the sea hare an excellent sense of smell that is essential in locating algae and eel grass. Due to their diet, these herbivore grazers have been referred to as “rabbits of the sea.” The flesh color of the sea hare is the same color of the food that it eats. This provides great camouflage to avoid detection from predators and could easily be mistaken as a dirty sponge by humans.
However, any predators brave enough to nibble on a sea hare will soon regret that decision as their tissue contains a toxin that makes them undesirable.

Since the sea hare cannot retreat into a shell for protection like other gastropods, it does possess another form of defense. When disturbed, the sea hare will eject a cloud of ink similar to an octopus or squid. One would assume that this is a smoke screen to provide cover for a quick escape. Yet remember, this animal is like a slug and can not make a fast get away. The ink is thought to contain chemicals that confuses and interferes with the senses of a potential predator. As a chemical engineer, the sea hare is able to convert harmless algae pigment into this potent ink concoction. The sea hare can then move away from the disoriented predator using one of two methods. It can use the large foot at the base of its soft body to crawl away or it can undulate
wing-like flaps of flesh called parapoda and swim away.

Native Americans would actually use the ink as dye for clothing. Today, some species of sea hares are used in neurobiology research due to a bundle of nerves that makes up their brain. They have the largest neurons of all animals, allowing particular actions to be traced to a single cell. Dr. Eric Kandel’s use of sea hares in understanding how neurons develop memories won him the Noble Prize in physiology in 2000. Also, a chemical in their ink called escapin, has anti-bacterial properties that is being studied to develop compounds to be used in eco-friendly biofilm products applied on boat hulls and other marine equipment.

But the most enjoyable use of this creature is to ponder its mystery as it cruises about in our diverse estuaries.

During my life living and working along the coast and spending time on the water I have learned that no species of animal brings more joy, reverence and awe than the magical bottlenose dolphin. They command your full attention and seem to make time fly and stand still at the same time.

Throughout time, the sleek, mystical creatures that cruise the oceans have captivated humankind.  Prehistoric engravings in Africa portray the image of people swimming with dolphins, and 3,500 years ago the ancient Greeks and Romans depicted dolphins in great works of art and stamped their image on coins.  Prominent on many early ships, the symbol of a dolphin was thought to provide protection from a fickle and sometimes angry ocean. Aristotle was the first to document that dolphins were indeed mammals and not a fish.  He noticed that they breathed air, were warm blooded, possessed hair, bore live young and nursed their young.

The dolphins that we see near the ocean shore and swimming in estuarine waters is the coastal bottlenose dolphin. Their sleek sturdy grey body can grow up to nine feet long and weigh up to 700 pounds.  Propelled by a mysteriously powerful tail, bottlenose dolphins usually cruise at a leisurely 3-6 miles per hour.  However, this superior swimmer has a streamlined body perfectly designed to reduce drag and can torpedo through the water at 15-22 miles per hour when chasing fish. They also have a smooth slick outer skin that allows them to easily glide through the water.

This layer of sensitive skin is being replaced almost every two hours and is easily damaged resulting in scars.  These scar patterns are unique to each dolphin and serve as a signature to researchers that study these toothed whales.

The individual characteristics of the dorsal fin are another fingerprint used by researchers. This fin acts as a keel and to keep the body from rolling and also has a thermo-regulating function to dissipate heat and prevent overheating. Their short pectoral fins gracefully maneuver the dolphin and also provide balance and assist with stopping.

Bottlenose dolphins use a variety of methods to snag fish with their cone shaped teeth.  They might individually chase fish or cooperatively work together to corral fish into a tightly packed ball and take turns charging through this “fish in a barrel”. A strong whack of the tail is sometimes used to stun fish for easy eating.  They have also been known to chase groups of fish into the shallows driving them onto a sandbar or muddy bank.  The dolphins will then get a running start and hydroplane on a thin cushion of water to reach the vulnerable flopping fish.  They will then wiggle their way back to deep water.

This method of fishing, however, has some serious risks.  In 1995, I rescued two dolphins that stranded themselves using this technique on a sandbar in Bogue Inlet.  When I reached them the dropping tide had left them in only a few inches of water with more than a hundred feet separating them from deeper water.  I knelt down beside one of the dolphins with my thighs against the midsection of its tail and began splashing water on the exposed skin to help keep it cool.  Feeling my presence the dolphin then used its tail and pushed away from me using my legs as a fulcrum and scooted several feet away.  I knelt down beside it again and it pushed off of me once more, another six feet.  We were on to something!  With the help of a friend who immediately responded to my call for help, the dolphins pushed their way to deep water using the sturdiness of our bodies. They exclaimed their freedom with a few celebratory leaps high out of the water.

This type of intelligent thinking is legendary for dolphins. They have been trained for years to entertain tourists and for use by the military.  By 1964 the CIA was already using dolphins to detect and plant mines; to protect divers; to attach listening devices on ships and to recover lost objects. The military has also researched their ability to determine the shape and location of objects using echolocation.  Dolphins can emit a powerful burst of clicking sounds to create an “echoic image” when the return echo is transmitted to the inner ear.  This keeps them alert for danger and the ability to locate food.

Dolphins are quite social and communicate through whistles and squeak produced from the blowhole.  They also alert each other using sound created by body language activities such as leaping and tail slapping.

A dolphin lover will stumble over their words when trying to explain the spiritual presence they feel when near a dolphin.  My wife once buckled at the knees and passed out when she touched a dolphin named Benny that was rescued and being rehabilitated in Beaufort in 1995.   To Native Americans, the dolphin symbolized the life force, the “keeper of the Sacred breath…”

As a kid growing up in coastal North Carolina I spent many a hot summers’ day out on the barrier islands hiking through the sandy dunes, body surfing the ocean waves and walking the moonlit beach looking for ghost crabs.  I would also love to stray over to the sound side of the island and spend a lazy afternoon wading through the shallow waters of Bogue Sound looking for hermit crabs, blue crabs and sting rays. During these excursions it wasn’t unusual to frequently see the head of a small reptile breaking the surface of the water for a fresh gulp of air.

As I grew older, I was always out on the water of our coastal estuaries through pursuits of pleasure and as a career.  I would continue to see the snouts of these creatures bobbing like a cork that has escaped the tether of a fishing line. Now, as over 40 years have passed, I rarely catch a glimpse of this intriguing marsh inhabitant that I consider to have the most stunning coloration of all the turtles.

Yes, the giant sea turtles are the media hogs with their cute little hatchlings dancing down to the ocean, but the diamondback terrapin is just as cool to me.  The terrapins love the brackish coastal marshes. They don’t venture out into the super salty ocean and they don’t swim too far up river where the water is fresh.

The top of their grey to brown shell is covered with scale-like scutes that contain the hieroglyphic looking namesake diamond pattern.  Their shell is excellent body armor, but they are unable to completely seek refuge inside their shell like the terrestrial box turtle.  The light grey skin of their exposed body parts looks as if it has been stained with henna in a tortuous pattern of Mehndi.   These patterns have the uniqueness of a fingerprint to each individual.

Along the Atlantic Coast from Cape Cod to Florida and along the Gulf Coast to Texas, terrapins cruise about the estuaries feeding on fiddler crabs, worms and a favorite food, the periwinkle. Diamondback terrapins don’t grow anywhere near as big as their sea turtle relatives.  The shell of a male will be around five inches while the female is a bit larger at seven inches; one of the largest shells ever recorded was nine inches.  At the end of all four legs are webbed feet with exposed claws.  The rear feet are quite a bit larger, flattened out and well adapted for pushing their streamlined shell through the water.

As a cold blooded reptile they sometimes will crawl ashore to bask in the sun during cooler weather.  When the temperatures dip too low they will dig into the muddy marsh bottom and hibernate for a few months.

The females will also come ashore during high tide in search of a sandy shoreline that will offer easy digging for a nest.  She will deposit eight to 10 leathery eggs, and in about two months the tiny terrapins will make their way into the marsh waters.  If a nest is laid in late summer, chilly temperatures at hatching time may persuade the hatchlings to ride out the winter in the nest and crawl out the following spring.  It’s a good thing that they are cautious about escaping from the nest until conditions are optimal since only one to three percent of the eggs develop a hatchling.

The name terrapin is derived from the Native America Algonquian word “torope,” meaning edible turtles that live in brackish waters.  During the American Revolution, General George Washington fed the hungry bellies of his troops with terrapin meat.  In the late 1800s through the 1920s, terrapin stew and soup was the haute cuisine in the upscale restaurants of big cities along the East Coast.  Demand for terrapin meat was high and the little reptile was almost hunted to extinction.

Salvation from the stew pot came from an unlikely event.  Terrapin soup and stew was rich in essential ingredients, sherry and cream.  The teetotaling ban of sherry during the Prohibition in 1920s caused the consumption of turtle stew to decline and thus a lull in hunting the terrapin.  The high class trend of eating terrapin began to wane and their populations rebounded even though modest harvesting continued.

The culinary popularity of terrapin meat demonstrated the potential for a cash fishery.  In 1900, the federal government established the U.S. Fish Commission Marine Laboratory in Beaufort.  During the next 40 years, one of the primary activities at the Beaufort Lab on Pivers Island was to study and raise diamondback terrapins.  More than 250,000 terrapins were raised and released along the east coast to help enhance and reestablish the native populations.

Today, almost all coastal states have put an end to the terrapin fishery and have listed the reptile as endangered, threatened or as a species of concern.  Essential nesting habitat has been lost to development.  Females in search of nesting sites have actually shut down JFK International Airport in New York when they crawled out of the bay and onto the runway.

But the greatest threat to terrapins isn’t airplanes; its crab pots.  Lured by bait into the pot and unable to escape, the turtle will drown if it cannot reach the surface. Close to a million crab pots are dropped into North Carolina waters each year and of those, around 17 percent become abandoned “ghost pots.”   Unless found and removed, these ghost pots continue to kill until the pot deteriorates years later.

During my career as a park ranger with North Carolina state parks I often received crazy reports of unusual and exotic animals in or near the park.  There have been accounts of mountain lions, wolves and even a kangaroo prowling around. The report of an African black mamba snake turned out to actually be a harmless native hognose snake. I have a faint glimmer of understanding for this misidentification since both snakes are well known for their impersonations of the feared cobra snake. I always welcomed the opportunity to investigate these reports since they offered the chance of seeing something out of the ordinary.

One morning I received a call from a resident who lived near Hammocks Beach State Park in Swansboro screaming excitedly that a badger had just waddled across their yard and climbed into one of their trees. A weasel-like badger in the coastal plain of North Carolina? This I had to see.

Since most unusual sightings like this usually occur late at night after the bars close, I wanted to confirm or bust this daytime sighting. Even though I knew the closest badger was probably hanging out among the patches of native prairie in Ohio, I couldn’t have made it any quicker to the house if I had the ability to teleport myself. Upon arriving at the house, the homeowner was out in the yard keeping an eye on the creature and gesturing wildly at a dark object high up in a large oak
tree.  The animal squirmed about while doing its best to hide in the crook of a big branch. It then stretched out, lying as flat as possible along the branch and remained motionless for about 10 minutes. Finally, the furry creature craned its neck and a black and white face looked straight down at me. For a quick second I was flooded with excitement. It was a badger!  Then reality kicked in and I realized that this guy was way too small for a badger.  A chattering bark-like sound filled the air and, with an irritated whip-like flick of its long fluffy tail, it revealed itself to be a fox squirrel.  Still pretty exciting stuff since fox squirrels had never been documented in or near the park.

Fox squirrels are noticeably bigger than gray squirrels and can have a variety of fur colors depending on their location. In our area they can be mainly grayish, reddish brown or black. They can have a white belly and a face with black and white patches. In some areas they are also called the monkey-faced squirrel or raccoon squirrel due to their facial markings.

Even though it is the largest tree squirrel in North America, it prefers to spend a great deal of time on the ground. They like forests with an open understory that contain nut and seed producing trees such as oak, pine and hickory. There, they can scamper about feasting on the nuts or saving some for later.  Fox squirrels are known as scatter-hoarders due to their practice of burying a supply of nuts at numerous locations. During the lean winter months their great sense of smell will guide them to these underground cupboards. Some of these caches are inevitably lost, however, and the fox squirrel becomes an unwitting Johnny Appleseed when these seeds sprout and grow into trees.
But they are also opportunistic and will eat perishable items such as plant buds, insects, fungi and even bird eggs.

The fox squirrel uses that bushy tail as a blanket and parachute.When not searching for food, the fox squirrel will spend a lot of energy on home repairs.  The honey-do list is long since they maintain up to six separate nests made up of twigs, leaves and pine needles. Some nests, called dreys, are actively used and some are vacant, keeping predators guessing and eliminating the buildup of nest parasites. They will build weather-tight nests for the winter and simple stick nests for the summer.

When threatened by a hawk or bobcat, they will run, similar to a fox, to the safety of the trees. It is here that they demonstrate their gymnastic agility to outmaneuver even the most persistent adversary. With their razor sharp claws, adapted digits, Popeye forearms and strong abdominals, these powerful rodents will race from tree to tree jumping over 15 feet and free-falling over 20 feet to escape predators. During these scampers, their bushy long tail acts as a stabilizer and is used like a parachute during those free falls.  The tail is also an important communication tool with other squirrels and is used as a blanket wrap during cold weather.  Their scientific name, Sciurus niger, even refers to this important appendage.  Sciurus is Greek for “shade tail” and niger is Latin for “dark.”

Fox squirrel populations are in decline, and it’s the same old story — loss of and fragmentation of habitat. Many of the open forests of mature longleaf pine and oak that the squirrel prefers has been converted to loblolly pine farms. The N.C. Natural Heritage Program has listed the fox squirrel as significantly rare and vulnerable to extinction in North Carolina.  However, it is not protected and is still considered a game animal and can be hunted.

Gliding gracefully above the water searching for a meal, the black skimmer may be one of the most recognizable coastal birds in flight. With a strange oversized beak, stubby red legs and bulky body, the black skimmer appears out of balance and clumsy on land. In the air, however, the skimmer with long delicate pointed wings is elegance aloft as it skims just above the glassy waters of a tidal pool.

Its long two-toned black and red knife-shaped bill is specially adapted for catching fish. Unique to only skimmers, the lower bill is significantly longer than the upper one. As it flies above the water to start fishing, the black skimmer resembles a passenger plane coming in for a landing. It slowly reduces altitude until it is a couple of inches above the water.  Then like landing gear, the bottom bill lowers until it is slicing through the water leaving a plow line in its wake. Like a pair of open scissors, the top bill snaps down as soon as the lower bill comes in contact with a fish. A quick downward nod of the head indicates contact has been made with the prey. Strong neck muscles then allow the bird to snatch the fish out of the water.

Since they feed at dusk, dawn and during the night, black skimmers rely on touch, not sight, to capture prey. Biologists call this method of feeding “tactile foraging.” Not surprisingly then, skimmers have small eyes that are so buried in their black head feathers that it almost looks as if they don’t have any eyes. But these eyes are special, unique only to skimmers. They are the only bird to have cat-like, slit-shaped pupils. The slit pupils allow for better vision at night or during times of low light. They also protect the eye from sun damage because they significantly reduce the amount of bright harsh sunlight reflected off of the sand that enters the eye.

Black skimmers are colonial nesters that raise their young on open sand flats near protected bays and inlets that provide a reliable and ready source of food. They particularly like to nest among the tern species, which are known for their energetic tactics in driving away predators.

The skimmer parents will scratch out a shallow depression in the sand and lay three to five camouflaged eggs. Unlike its parents, the newly hatched chick will have an upper and lower bill of equal length. This will allow the chick to easily pick up the regurgitated prey (fish and crabs) that their parents provide. In about a month the chick will begin to fly and its lower bill will gradually grow longer until the chick will no longer be able to pick up food off the ground. The fledgling must then master the art of skimming to avoid starving to death.

The black and white tuxedo-like coloration of the black skimmer gives a hint to its social nature.  When not nesting, black skimmers continue to enjoy each other’s company. Each fall, small groups will gather into large flocks that migrate south for the winter in search of warmer weather. As evening arrives, skimmers in the group bark and yip. This is why skimmers were once called seadogs in Virginia.  The famed ornithologist Robert Murphy once described black skimmers as “aerial beagles hot on the scent of aerial rabbits”.

As with other colonial nesting birds, great numbers of black skimmers were killed in the mid-1800s for their eggs and feathers.  Their numbers rebounded after laws to protect them were put in place. However, populations are again on the decline.  Intense coastal development and human disturbance have significantly reduced the amount of available nesting habitat. Black skimmers are quite skittish and will completely abandon a nest at the first sign of a threat. Countless birds have died after becoming entangled in carelessly discarded fishing line while feeding.  The Audubon Society now lists the black skimmer as “code yellow,” meaning that their decline is a national conservation concern.  Locally in North Carolina they are listed as a “species of concern” by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.

Beachcombers intently surveying a cluster of oceanic gifts that marks the reach of the last high tide sometimes find an eye staring back at them.  This “eye” is the dark spot at the center of a shark eye sea shell.

The smooth, glossy surface of a shark eye just released by the sea looks like a piece of fine china. Streaks of blue accent its grayish color. If unbroken, the perfect shark eye is quickly retrieved by the discerning shell collect. The armor of one of the most fearsome carnivores on the beach then ends up on the mantle where it is greatly admired.

The shark eye, Neverita duplocatus, is in the family of predatory marine mollusks known as the Naticidae, or moon snails.  Close to three hundred species of these snails are found around the world.

The shark eye, which has one shell with a single opening, is a gastropod — “stomach foot” in Latin. They are different from two-shelled bivalves such as oysters and clams. Its shell can be up to five inches in diameter and the fleshy mass spilling out of the shell can be a foot in diameter.

When inflated with water, the animal is usually three to four times larger than the shell. Amazingly, as it ejects the water, the shark eye can squeeze all it body parts back into the shell and then seal the opening with the operculum – Latin for “door.

This soft-bodied animal inside the shell has four major parts: the foot, the body, the mantle and the shell. The bottom of the muscular foot is covered with millions of small cilia, which are hair-like structures that propel the shark eye along the sea bottom on a cushion of mucus as if it were gliding on a magic carpet.  Above the foot is the body, which contains the heart and other vital internal organs. Covering the body is the mantle, a cape of tissue that produces chitin, which forms the protective shell by and hardening it with calcium carbonate.

The shark eye uses its powerful foot to bury and plow through the sandy sea floor in search of prey such as clams and other mollusks. Once it finds something to eat, the shark eye’s foot covers its victim. It secretes an acidic enzyme that weakens the shell of its prey, and the tongue-like radula begins its deadly work.  In three quick minutes, the radula will drill a neat hole into the shell. Digestive enzymes will then seep through the opening and soften the flesh of the victim. The radula goes back to work tearing and scooping out the food with thousands of recurved teeth, much like a rasp against a piece of wood.

Along with the shark eye shell, beachcombers also find something that looks like a circular piece of plastic. This is the egg mass “collar” that is frequently washed ashore by heavy surf during a storm.  A fresh egg collar is rubbery and flexible, but after it dries out it is fragile and will easily crack and crumble.

Shark eye eggs are encased in a sheet of thick mucus that wraps around the foot creating the shape of the egg mass.  The mucus is so sticky that sand adheres to it, sandwiching the eggs inside.  After about six weeks, about 100,000 free-swimming larvae will escape the egg collar and enter the food chain.  Those that survive will eventually settle to the sea bottom and become a tiny shark eye trying to avoid predators such as sea stars and rays.  When a shark eye does fall victim to a predator their empty shell does not always find its way to the mantle piece.  One of nature’s resourceful recyclers, the hermit crab, will use the empty shell as its noble home.

Autumn cool fronts have erased the hazy, sticky humidity that clouds the air, leaving the sky as blue as the eye of a northern gannet. This nip in the air signals the common buckeye butterfly to begin its southern migration along the East Coast. These buckeyes are the latest broods of those that had migrated north for the summer.

The dawn of chilly mornings reveals the silhouettes of butterflies basking on the trunk of a live oak tree, soaking in the warmth of the first rays of the sun. When this solar energy heats their body temperature to above 90 degrees, the cold-blooded buckeye begins to flutter about looking for energy-boosting nectar or the chance to impress a potential mate.

The male buckeye will sit on a perch looking for females and will launch into a fast and erratic flight pattern to check out any flying insect that passes nearby.

Named for its striking pattern of distinctive eyespots on the dorsal side of its wings, the buckeye is one of the most widespread butterflies in the United States. As it zeros in on a buckeye, a young hungry bird it will likely be startled and distracted enough to abort an attack when confronted with large staring eyes.

The buckeye also has different seasonal pigmentation patterns on the ventral side of its wings. In the summer, the color is a light yellow and in the fall a pink rose.  These changes are important for camouflage cover and the heat retention of body heat.

In 2006, the U.S. Postal Service chose the handsome buckeye to grace the 24-cent stamp.

Anyone who has walked through the open sand flats of a salt marsh has probably heard the scurrying of little feet as a carpet of sand fiddler crabs quickly parts like the Red Sea to avoid being crushed by intruding humans. Look down on the purplish colored crustacean, and the male crab will wave his huge Popeye-esque claw up and down as if to say, “I can take you on with one claw tied behind my shell.”

Male sand fiddlers are a feisty lot anyway. The males scuffle and fight so much that part of their scientific name, Uca pugilator, implies that they are boxers. They are, in fact, more like wrestlers. The males use their large meaty claw to push, grab and even flip over other males as they battle over mates. Most fights are nothing more than shoving matches, unless one male is trying to take over another’s burrow.  Then things can turn ugly, and the loss of the big claw is a distinct possibility.

Such a loss can be devastating since the big claw is vital in attracting a female during elaborate courtship displays and to fend off rival males. The males even use the big claw as a drumstick, pounding it and their legs on the ground at night to attract a mate. Females detect the vibrations through a sensory organ on their legs.

After mating, the female carries a fertilized egg mass, called a sponge, on her belly until the eggs develop.  She then releases the larvae into tidal waters on an outgoing tide.  The babies go through a series of developmental stages and metamorphosis while eventually making their way back to the marsh as young fiddler crab. They’ll molt a number of times as they grow larger. Each molt will also regenerate any missing legs or claws.

Fiddler crabs are social creatures that live in large colonies. These neighborhoods are easily recognized by hundreds of small holes in the sandy marsh soil that are the openings to two- to three-foot deep burrows. The crabs use the “L” shaped burrow to mate, rest and to hibernate in the winter and escape the heat in the summer. They also scurry to their burrows to avoid predators such as a hungry white ibis. During high tide, the burrows become storm cellars. The crabs seal the entrances with sand plugs and hunker down to keep from being swept away by strong tidal currents.

Those piles of small sand balls around the burrow openings are from the excavation of the burrow. All this digging is beneficial to the marsh by aerating the soil and by bringing organic matter rich in nutrients to the surface to stimulate the growth of the marsh grass.

Notice the smaller sand balls around a sand fiddler colony. The crabs make these pellets while feeding. Crabs scrape their small claws across the surface of the sand and bring the material to their mouths where they separate edible algae and other organic matter. The crabs form the inedible sand into balls that they place on the ground.

The constant motion of the small claw going from the ground, across the big claw to the mouth reminded a lyrical observer way back yonder of a bow moving across a fiddle. Thus, the fiddler crab was named.

The brown pelican has long been the proud logo of the N.C. Coastal Federation.  We chose this stately bird because it is a symbol of hope, a living reminder that our coastal natural resources can withstand serious challenges. The struggles of the brown pelican, which weathered threats that brought it to the brink of extinction, mirror the challenges that continue to threaten the resources of our coast.

Brown pelicans are resilient and have prevailed despite steep odds. Market hunters shot them by the thousands just for their feathers; commercial fishermen unnecessarily slaughtered them under the mistaken belief that the birds were competitors; and pesticides such as DDT seriously impaired the pelican’s ability to reproduce. Chemical residues collected in stormwater runoff and contaminated the fish that pelicans ate. The chemicals disrupted calcium formation, resulting in pelican eggs that were thin, brittle and unable to develop.  The poisoned fish also killed pelicans directly.

Pelican populations declined dramatically, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service put the bird on the federal endangered species list in 1970, but it took 11 more years for the agency to devise a recovery plan that established sanctuaries, natural areas and wildlife reserves. DDT and some other pesticides were also banned, and the brown pelican began a long and slow recovery. In November 2009, it was removed from the endangered species list along the Atlantic coast and the Florida Gulf coast.

Seeing a large flock of pelicans gliding silently overhead along the barrier islands almost makes you forget all that they have endured. These large birds with a six-foot wingspans look like something out of the age of dinosaurs. Their size is deceiving, since they weigh only eight pounds because of their hollow bones.

The body of an adult pelican is silver-gray with a darker belly and a mainly white head that will turn yellowish during breeding season. These highly social birds nest in colonies on small remote islands that are free of predators. The chicks are naked and helpless but will be covered by a white down about ten days after hatching. They depend on a steady supply of regurgitated fish from the parents while in the nest. As a defense mechanism, the adults and chicks will throw up on human
intruders that venture into the nesting site.

Pelicans have a long bill with a throat pouch that is used for fishing.  Excellent eyesight allows pelicans gliding over the ocean to find mullet or menhaden near the surface.  Once the fish are spotted, the pelican will rotate its upper body downward, stretch out its long neck, tuck back its wings and begin a freefall that ends with an explosive splash on the surface of the water.  Air sacs underneath the skin protect the pelican when it smacks the water after dives as high as 60 feet.  As the long bill pierces the water the pouch will expand scooping up the fish along with about two gallons of water.

After this controlled crash, the pelican will float on the surface and drain the water out of its pouch. Any fish trapped inside the pouch will then be tossed head first down the throat.

This tricky technique takes chicks a while to learn. The parents will fatten them up with about 150 pound of fish during the nine-month fledging period. When new chicks leave the nest they actually weigh more than their parents.  This additional body fat will provide them with the needed energy until they master the circus-like fishing maneuver.

An excellent swimmer, since all four toes are connected by a web of skin, brown pelicans will also swim on the surface of the water lunging after fish.

On the ground brown pelicans appear to be awkward and are clumsy walkers.  In the flight, however, they are grace defined. They fly in groups forming a classic V pattern or a simple long line. They glide along on the wind or in the currents created by their beating wings, called drafting, which reduces the amount of energy needed for flying.  One of the most beautiful coastal sights is a long line of pelican silhouettes skimming just above the ocean surface as they slowly rise and fall like a ribbon undulating in a soft breeze.

Brown pelicans are now a common sight along our coast. However, their future is still uncertain. Loss of nesting habitat, human disturbance of nesting colonies, fishing line entanglement and pollution continue to impact their numbers.  We need to make sure that their future looks promising, since legend has it that when old fishermen die, they will come back as pelicans.