Indigo

Lately I find myself shooting close to home. There’s a lot of nature on my piece of the island, and I like it that way. Birds fly in to roost or feed in the trees. During migration you never know what will arrive.

About two weeks ago, there was a thump on the window, and I knew an unfortunate bird had flown into the reflection of deceiving glass. It’s a common problem.

I always want to help revive the victim unless the collision is fatal. Most of the time the birds are stunned and after a short respite, they’re able to fly off. This time I was blown away when the accident involved a male indigo bunting.

Preferring more inland habitat, they are rare in our seaside village, but not unheard of.

swirl The bunting was dazed and I set up a 105 micro nikkor for a few close ups.

beak Interestingly, I’ve read their plumage is really black, but because of the way the feathers are structured, they reflect as a brilliant blue in sunlight.

bunting Before long he came to and flew away.

Oregon Inlet

We hear a lot about Oregon Inlet, and the bridge spanning it. Nowadays you can hardly talk about one without mentioning the other. It’s nothing new and has been an issue for a long time.

When I first came here, driving over that beautifully curved bridge across the inlet was an awesome experience, the vistas remarkable. It was sort of an environmental work of art that served a purpose, getting to and from Hatteras Island. I would eventually learn that it was a bit more than that.

trawlers

In April of 1977, while driving to Nags Head, I watched 4 trawlers coming in through the well-marked channel. There was no traffic and I had just gone over the peak of the bridge. I stopped overlooking Bodie Island spit, got out and took one shot with a 400mm lens on a fairly new Nikon F2.

aerial

In January of 1985, we had a severe cold snap. Temperatures were low enough to freeze portions of the Pamlico Sound. I was so impressed that I hired a pilot to take me up and shoot the ice flows from above. We ascended to 7,000 feet, and the view was spectacular.

bailey boy

December of that same year, I was shooting a story on commercial fishing for Outer Banks Magazine. Arrangements were made for me to spend 3 days on a trawler from Wanchese, where Captain Terry Saunders welcomed me aboard the “Richard Wayne”. There were 2 days of fair weather, but when a northeaster set in on the third day, the boats decided to come in early. Crossing the bar at the mouth of the inlet was rough, and Captain Stevie Daniels maneuvered “Bailey Boy”  through, right behind us.

station

I flew during a northeaster in 1989 and made shots along Hatteras Island. There was no jetty in place at the inlet yet, and the Coast Guard Station was beginning to wash away. At the time, they were abandoning the station and moving to a newly built facility on the north side, next to the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center.

bridge

No recollections of Oregon Inlet would be complete without mentioning the October 1990 incident of a dredge taking out 400 feet of Bonner Bridge. I made this shot that December riding the ferry across the inlet when repairs were being made.

aerial '05

On an overcast September day in 2005, I went airborne with a videographer shooting a documentary on rising sea level. The section of the bridge that was taken out in 1990 is noticeable as a darker shade of gray in the pavement.

Irene

Hurricane Irene radically reshaped Oregon Inlet in 2011.

The only inlet on the east coast facing northeast, Oregon Inlet was originally formed in 1846. Since then, it has migrated over 2 miles south. Watching the area change and shift over the years continues to be fascinating. It’s a display of man’s engineering prowess in the face of some of nature’s most powerful forces. It’s also very expensive.

 

 

Waxwings

Nature never ceases to amaze me as it provides for the proliferation of life.

When birds migrate, their food supply is crucial. So it happens that this time of year as the female red cedar trees are draped with succulent berries, the cedar waxwings are moving through in large flocks. They can be seen resting on power lines or collectively swirling through the villages. Then they disappear into the trees. Eastern red cedars keep their foliage and are the prevalent green in our winter landscape. They are easy to spot.

My property has lots of indigenous vegetation, including cedars. The male cedar develops tiny cones and pollenates the females. Sometimes the trees are so laden with pollen, the branches practically smoke as the wind whips through them.

flock Flocks feed voraciously in the cedars around my house.

vertical'

Cedar Waxwings are handsome birds with colorful plumage, a rakish black mask and crest.

tail The tail is striking and looks as if it was dipped in yellow paint.

trailers The name of the bird comes from the waxy red secretions found on the tips of the secondary feathers.

down  Down the hatch. Cheers!

 

Critters

About ten years ago, I began nurturing an oyster garden. It has not been without some pitfalls like high wave action, sedimentation and algae blooms. But despite that, the oysters have thrived and grown into a series of small reefs. The reefs attract a myriad of other organisms, not just oysters. As the oysters spawn and grow, so does the size and complexity of the reef.

I take water quality data around the reefs twice a week and submit the information to researchers at UNCW and ECU. I see shrimp and fish interacting with the reefs. One day measuring salinity, I stood in waist deep water with a school of taylor blues swimming circles around me. I’ve also seen green sea turtles feeding there.

barnacles                                      Barnacles grow abundantly on the reef.

anemone Sea anemones wave arms in the moving current.

eggs A blenny laid it’s eggs in an empty oyster shell.

oyster toad Reef inhabitants include young oyster toads.

mud crab Mud crabs find a bountiful food supply in and around the reef.

spider Spider crabs are common residents.

stone crab I’m also finding some stone crabs in the system.

snappers One of the most interesting critters in the mix are the snapping shrimp. About 2 inches long, they look like a small lobster.

butterfly One late Summer day, I caught and released this butterfly fish.

shucked Some critters live inside the oyster itself, like the pea crab in the oyster on the right. In it’s protected environment, the crab feeds on plankton brought in by the oyster and it’s relationship is  parasitic. Locally, the pea crab in an oyster is deemed a culinary delicacy.

 

 

Cars

A weekend trip to Raleigh a few weeks ago was a nice change of pace from the riggers of mid-winter on Cape Hatteras. While there we happened upon a new exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Art.

Porsche By Design, Seducing Speed is a collection 22 automobiles manufactured by the renown German auto maker. The popular show runs until February 2.

Copy and paste for the museum’s web site:

Porsche by Design: Seducing Speed

Porsche has long been one of my favorite cars, and I thoroughly appreciated the chance to see them as art forms.

1938 In 1938 Porsche built the Type 64 Berlin-Rom Racer. The aerodynamic design was way ahead of it’s time.

1949 The 1949 356 Coupe was one of my favorites. It has a 40 hp 1100 cc 4-cylinder engine.

McQueen Then there was Steve McQueen’s gorgeous 1958 Speedster.

speedster McQueen’s Speedster has a 1600 Super  88 hp 4-cylinder engine

 

Carrera The 1964 356 C Carrera Coupe also caught my eye.

356 C The Carrera was built with a 1966 cc air-cooled 128 hp 4-cylinder engine that could rev up to 6000 rpm’s. It’s top speed was 125 mph.

 

901 This 1963 prototype 901 was the precursor to the 911. It has a 2 liter 128 hp 6-cylinder, single overhead cam engine with a top speed of 125 mph.

911  This 911 Carrera was built in 1974 and  set up for some serious racing. It has a 3 liter air-cooled 6 cylinder producing 316 hp at 8,000 rpm’s. Top speed is 155.

917 K The 1971 Porsche 917 K had a  600hp 4907 cc 12 cylinder engine with a top speed of 223 mph.

908 K Porsche’s 1968 model 908K prototype was a 2990 cc 8 cylinder air-cooled engine developing 350 hp with a top speed of 200 mph.

926 C The 1990 Porsche 926 C has a 3200 cc 6- cylinder engine boasting 750 hp and a top speed of 215 mph.

Hybrid Porsche’s 2010 model 911 GT3R Hybrid is a prototype equipped with a water-cooled 410 hp 4 liter 6-cylinder engine. It also has 2 electric motors (202 hp) and is an all-wheel drive vehicle. It’s top speed is 175 mph.

Panamericana In 1989 Porsche made the Panamericana, a one of a kind concept car with a top speed of 162 mph. It has a 3162 cc 6-cylinder  275 hp engine. 

Joplin Janis Joplin’s 1965 Porsche 356 C Cabriolet was getting a lot of attention.

Janis

It brought back memories of driving my very own 356 A, a 1959 Convertible D. As the successor to the Speedster, only 1332 of them were built at Porsche’s Drauz plant.

Years ago I was a motor-head. In high school I loved fast cars, and drag racing.

My dad bought 2 used 1958 Volkswagen beetles and I rebuilt a 1600 Porsche engine for one and had some fun. In those days, it was called a Poor Man’s Porsche. Dad was mechanically inclined and it rubbed off on me. It was the best of times. We tore them down and rebuilt them at home in the laundry room.

Right after high school I found an old Porsche, abandoned in a parking lot. The motor had been stolen and the owner was going to junk it. I bought it for $50 and in the course of a few years began restoring it.

jacked up In 1968 when I was 19 years old, I was right in the middle of fixing up the Convertible D. Here I was rebuilding a 1600 N engine that I’d bought in pieces.

As a day student at George Mason, it became my mode of transportation to class everyday. During a period when I was doing body work, it was a sight to see, speckled with gray and black primer. That same time, I was employed at a Mercedes Benz dealership, and got some expert advice from knowledgable German mechanics.

I loved the deep sound of the air-cooled engine resonating as I drove into tunnels and underpasses around DC and Virginia. Drifting through the s-curves on Carlyn Springs Road was another joy. All the Porsche owners flashed their headlights at one another. For a while I was one of them.

Convertible D All I have left are the memories and a few old Polaroids.

1959 As time passed, I became more interested in hanging out at the beach and surfing. The Porsche was involved in a bad traffic accident and we sold it in parts.