Watching and Waiting

Years ago, before there was cable television and the internet on Hatteras Island, I relied a lot on weather radios. I also had my dad, a career meteorologist, for tracking and updates of tropical systems. With an approaching hurricane my dad would look at surrounding pressure systems and could plot a course using his protractor and a set of parallels. He had an uncanny sense of predicting where the storms were headed, and a detached calmness even about a major hurricane bearing down on one of his sons.

Today of course, we have the world wide web of information. And that’s a good thing, because my dad is gone, and it’s helpful to know what we’re in for. Hurricane Earl is forecast to head our way and veer off slightly to the north northeast just south of the Cape. And that would be a good thing. Hopefully we can dodge this storm, like many others.

Yesterday morning I drove up to the S-Curve to check the swell, and it had definitely picked up. There were a few brave souls playing near the shore break, and even some body boarders getting some thrilling rides. From the beautiful weather, you’d hardly know that there was an approaching storm.

Rodanthe oceanfront on Wednesday.

Playing close to the shorebreak at S-Curve.

Body boarding on a big glassy face.

Evacuees leaving town through Mirlo Beach.

Making the most of the last day of gorgeous weather near Rodanthe Pier.

The end of Wednesday with swirling high clouds.

Next morning, after a restless sleep, I wonder what the next 24 hours will have in store. It’s hot and humid, and light northeast winds. The house is boarded up with plywood that I bought 28 years ago.

All boarded up and ready to move vehicles to higher ground.

Thursday brings in rough surf at Rodanthe Pier.

The artificial dune at S-Curve on Wednesday morning.

Same location on Thursday. Hurricane Earl will pass in several hours, and like many hurricanes, at night. I can’t tell you how hot and humid it is, and I’m worn out from all the preparations. It’ll be a long night.

I intend to expand this blog entry as time goes on. So stay tuned.



Wings Over Water

Another high season here at the beach is nearly over, and it’s been a hot one. When I was a kid, it was a sad time for me, watching Summer end and going back to school. But now I find myself excited with Autumn approaching. The vacationing crowds depart, leaving locals and off-season visitors to relish the best that the Outer Banks has to offer.

Fall has always been my favorite season here. It’s not only a time for great weather and scenery, it’s also a time of transition and the spectacle of bird migration. I’m amazed every time I watch massive flocks of shorebirds navigate and feed along the beaches. Some of them make journeys of thousands of miles, and the shorelines here are a critical step in that flight.

The Red Knot is a good example. They make one of the longest migrations of any bird, traveling from their Arctic breeding grounds in Summer to southern South America in Winter, a distance of over 9,000 miles. I’ve seen them feeding voraciously on sand fleas and other organisms in the surf zone.

Red Knots foraging on Ocracoke.

Some of the more common beach birds encountered are sanderlings, willets, black-bellied plovers with an occasional godwit or whimbrel. I’ve spent years watching them and trying to capture their images. I love how flocks can fly as a unit, wadded in tight packs. Their quick flight is erratic, so photographing them in the air is a challenge.

Marbled Godwit

Oystercatcher

Sanderlings

Willets

Brown Pelican

This November will mark another annual celebration of Wings Over Water, and I was asked once again, to lead one of the many field trips. I decided to concentrate on bird photography at the beach. Wednesday afternoon on November 10th, I’ll meet a small group of participants at my studio to get acquainted, view some work and discuss photography. Then we’ll hit the beach via 4-wheel drive to do some shooting. Scheduling this trip around a low tide, this will be a great opportunity to see shorebirds and seabirds in action. You never know what you’ll see. 





Show Time

My Summers are not what they used to be. It seems that I get caught up more in photography business, than surfing and hanging out at the beach. Now there are more people than ever coming to the Outer Banks, and I don’t blame them. The place speaks for itself. So now I make hay while the sun shines.

Lately, I’ve been occupied printing, matting and framing not only for my gallery inventory, but also preparing for an exhibit being held at the largest gallery space in the area. Roanoke Island Festival Park in Manteo is hosting a group show that will feature my work along with two other local photographers, Ray Matthews and Eve Turek. Our theme is one of my favorite subjects, the weather.

We hang our pieces next Thursday, and the exhibit will start with a reception, open to the public on Sunday, August 1st from 2 to 4 PM. 

Since I’ve got this on the brain so much, I thought I’d give a sneak preview of a few of my prints.

Taken last Fall, this breaking wave was formed as a result of Tropical Storm Ida.

The past winter was unusually cold here. I made this photo in my back yard after brisk northwest winds sprayed water from the Pamlico Sound, forming icicles on the marsh grass.

This image of the Pamlico Sound was made several years ago with my medium format film camera. As you can see, the sound was frozen well offshore. The chilly winds blow the water toward the shoreline, where it is built up as striations of ice on the surface.

An unusual weather shot, this waterspout appeared in 2005.

It should be a fun and extraordinary show, so consider yourselves invited.

Spawning

This is a time of year when new life is born to maintain a continuance of species. Signs are all around us. Much of it is obvious, as in nesting birds or budding plants. But much of it we cannot see, unless we look closely. Take the eastern oyster, for example.

For as long as I’ve lived on Hatteras Island, oysters have been a fascination to me. Whenever I go collecting, it’s apparent that they grow in certain areas more than others. I notice that even in those more prolific spots, that the oyster population has generally been in a steady decline. This is attributed to over-harvesting, water pollution, parasites and lack of substrate material for new oysters to attach and grow.

Mature brood stock oysters emit egg and sperm into the water column, which in turn combine to produce eyed larvae, the beginning of becoming a true oyster. A scientific collection permit has allowed me to gather brooders for my own oyster garden spawning. I also donate collected brood stock to the aquaculture program at Carteret Community College and to the University of North Carolina Coastal Studies Institute at Cape Hatteras School.

Several years ago I attended an oyster conference in Morehead City, where I saw a number of scientists and people like myself looking for answers. It was here where I met Dr. Kemp. He runs the aquaculture program at Carteret Community College. A number of us got together and founded Shellfish Gardeners of North Carolina. We are interested in growing oysters, not only as a recreational activity, but also as a way to help the environment. We have had workshops to learn more about life cycles, water quality and to educate others.

For oyster gardening in eastern Pamlico Sound, Skip Kemp has been my mentor.

This has evolved into a network of people compiling and studying data. I collect water quality data for the Citizen’s Monitoring Network out of East Carolina University, and also compile information for the Oyster Spat Monitoring Project based at University of North Carolina in Wilmington.

Past data indicates that now is a prime time for local oysters to be spawning, so I have to keep a sharp eye out to see if there are any new oyster spat.

These eyed larvae have attached to an oyster shell and are 1 day old oysters.

This composite image shows new oyster spat at weekly intervals beginning with 1 week old at the upper left and 4 weeks old on the lower right. The initial growth rates are dramatic. The ruler scale is in centimeters.


These are almost 5 months old.

Yearlings can come in different sizes, depending on environmental conditions.


Unexpected Visitors

I love the nature and tranquility of my yard. The variety of birds that come throughout the year is amazing. Some fly to the feeder hanging in the garden. Others come to perch in the trees and bushes. Some do both. I’ve seen unusual birds like scarlet tanagers, baltimore orioles and bald eagles. I also get more usual sightings like cardinals, towhees and finches.

 A couple of weeks ago, my friend Steve dropped by. Like me, he’s an avid gardener, and sometimes we exchange seeds or ideas. As we were sitting next to one of my raised beds, discussing the merits of soil pH, there was a rustling in the pines. We looked up to see a feathery creature stumbling along the branches. It was a young great horned owl clutching a limb then jumping to another. We could hardly believe it. We all stared, checking out each other. The young bird was clicking it’s bill, and glaring at us with big yellow eyes. It was an amusing sight.

We looked for 20 minutes not realizing that we too were being scrutinized. Unbeknownst to us, there was an adult owl perched in an nearby tree, and it was watching us the whole time.   

The next few days I saw them again and again, and wondered why they would stay here. The juvenile, only a few months old, still had some downy plumage, yet was able to fly fairly well. A nest 30 feet up in a tree gave me a clue. Could it belong to them? It looked so small. 

I remembered the baby great horned owl that we rescued 2 years earlier, after it fell out of a nest. That youngster had been raised in a nest even smaller, but it worked. Well, sort of. I learned that great horned owls use nests built and vacated by other birds. Locally here on Hatteras, they nest in January or early February, long before most other birds are doing it.

This 4-week old owl had fallen onto soft pine straw from a nest 25 feet high.

Now I’ve been watching these raptors for 3 weeks. During the day they roost nearly motionless in the branches. They move around a little, depending on the comfort zone. At times they get harassed by mocking birds, but other than that you’d never even know they were there. They blend in beautifully. If my theory about their nest is right, then they’ve been in my own back yard for 3 months without me knowing it.

The adult gets a morning snooze.

The adult after a long rainy night of hunting.

The juvenile is just getting its feathery horns.

Natural born killers, they are perfectly designed for what they do. At dusk they get active. They’re silent, stealthy fliers. At night, I’ve seen them perched on power lines, rooftops, on my osprey platform in the marsh, or at my neighbor’s fish house looking for prey. Then the next morning, I find them nestled stoically in the same group of trees. It’ll be interesting to see how long this continues.