Catching up

We can never get over the beauty of a sunrise on the Pea Island Refuge . This past week was the Wings Over Water Wildlife Festival and the weather was just awesome. The days were in the low 70's and the nights were clear and in the low 60's. It was perfect for all involved. So many day and night refuge programs that everyone was always on the go.

I have a lot of Sunrise shots as Lauren and I had volunteered to do early morning Hospitality at Pea Island so we were there every morning at 6:15 each day to greet the early Birding tours and offer some coffee, tea or hot cider and an assortment of backed goods donated by the not so local bake shop, 25 miles away and what favorites Sam's club offered, 100 miles away in Virginia. We just loved talking to the Birders form all over the US and from Germany and France, China and Japan. Way cool working with the language barrier at times. Always love it when the Germans come in with a picture of a Raccoon and as they don't have any in Germany . Just great.

A young Cedar Waxwing hung out in front of the PI VC for 4 of the five days and there are now several thousand pictures of this poor bird all over the world today. It had been feasting on some fermented berries on the bushes by the VC and nothing really bothered it until the last day when a couple of Black rat snakes showed up and he beat a fast retreat.

With a little down time between birding tours and chance to grab a little coffee mocha and enjoy the sun. Each morning seemed a little weird as the wind always blows here and for 4 straight days it was almost non existent  . It made set easy but with no wind the mosquitoes made their little nasty selves at home with the blood tasting they enjoy so much. Thank the heavens for the all natural bug spray we have, smell great with no chemicals and it works. The mosquitoes here have stripes on their legs and cute faces.

Did I mention the beautiful Sunrise each day. Yea

The big woolly caterpillars are every where and if you believe in the old tales then we are in for a colder winter.

One of the beach water birding groups checking out the beach from the top of the dune across from the VC .

Lauren helping the Red Wolf Intern do his program before we go into Alligator River refuge for the after dark Red Wolf Howling. It is a really awesome program as we all drive into the amazingly dark refuge for several miles. AR is 155 thousand acres . We arrive at several gates to unlock and run the mosquito gauntlet as we arrive at our destination  .The Intern leaves us and disappears into the dark and few minutes later we can hear the Red Wolves howling off in the darkness. Just the best. These are the only Red Wolves still in the wild in the World. We had a chance to hear them when we were evacuated to Alligator River for the non hurricane . There are right now at least three separate groups moving around in this section of AR and we still hope they survive in the wild and  the government cut backs as they are slowly losing the fight for funding.

Clouds , Ghost Crabs , Ocean

We went to the Beach this morning and it was just beautiful. nice breeze from the South and at 9:30 it was already 82 degrees.

We have a storm off to the south and north of us and the sky was awesome. Clouds from two directions . All shapes and colors.

The clouds over the dune that's just behind the RV

This shelf cloud turned the sky black over us but there was no rain. We have noticed that by Thursday the beach looses most of the crowed. mostly they are all sunburned and looking for some sort of indoor activity.

Just sitting and enjoying the day so we always bring something to feed the Gulls. Today we had a surprise with a couple of Ghost Crabs. We knew they pick up bits of food we throw out but this really surprised us.

He came over and grabbed a full cracker and carried it off to his hole. just a small problem occurred when he got to his hole.

When it didn't fit into the hole he tossed it out for another try.

Grab the end here and lift , that should work.

Just a little more effort should do the trick.

No

A different approach.

No , same result

Lets try again, but by this time his neighbor came over and stole the cracker.

Darn , he has had the same result. You can only wonder what the first Crab was thinking.

It really should fit

He gave up so we went over and broke it up for him and watched for another 20 minutes as he carried each piece into the hole. Made us wonder just how deep the little one had dug down. We also put some cracker by the first ones hole and he also filled his hole . Just a hoot to watch these Crabs work .

Just one bird picture today. The surf was fairly calm as the wind is out of the South West and it keeps the waves really low.

Birds , Bears and such

We went out to the Alligator River refuge and was lucky enough to see several moms and cubs .

And like all good moms when she saw us she took the little ones into the soybean field.

Sunset over the Sound

We have been witness to a really cool discovery of one of the great mass Purple Martin nesting areas on the East coast. Thanks Cindy.

This is still a little early in their nesting period but in two weeks there should be a hundred thousand Martins here.

Just a pretty Beach day.

Watching the Shore birds working the wash for some eats.

Peaceful

Gulls and Cheese Doodles , perfect together  .

If you have the goods they will come

A little out of order but we made several trips to watch the Martins

If you wander through enough Cemetery's you will find the neatest head stones.

This is a new marker  we found near the Aquarium parking lot in Manteo

Always a little history

A little more Civil War history in NC

Tern Banding

We arrived on a small sandy island out in the sound at 6:30 am to band a new batch of Tern babies.

Any time you enter a rookery you are going to upset the moms

We had to be extra careful walking about as there were eggs everywhere.

There were so many small chicks still in their nests it was some times hard to find a safe path.

This small one was only a few hours old and the egg shell was still in the nest .

One mom was trying to protect this batch of little ones and was herding them into the bushes to protect them.

As we tried to herd the chicks across the beach to our make shift corral. It wasn't going well. they had there own thoughts on where they were going.

How could such little birds out smart 14 adults. It was easy. We would go left and they would go right and then turn around and just stop.

We finally broke them into smaller groups and had some success. We brought down the wire corral and banded them on the spot.

Just so cute. One of the three thousand little one we helped to band on a really sunny hot day out in the Pamilico Sound , about 10 miles in from the Oregon Inlet . It is just a beautiful location for the rookery as they are all posted " no entry " and they really are just for the birds.

Too hot

         We have been in the Outer Banks for over a week now and it's just to hot to do much of anything. We have done our first three shifts in the Pea Island VC and every one who comes in can not believe how hot it is. The fresh water pond behind the VC has almost disappeared . That's the first time in 30 years . All we are able to do right now is do our shifts and hide in the AC until this heat breaks.                                                                                                      G

Traveling

         Day three on the road and so far everything has been a good . Our one day and two nights in New Orleans was as good as it has always been but the French Quarter is not a pretty as it use to be. A little more trash and now there is graffiti on some of the historic houses and just about every where else a can of paint can come into play. So sad. As we walked some of the side streets there are signs that say to travel in large groups for safety, how things have changed in a few short years. Today as we were leaving the RV park the road to I 10 was closed due to a shooting under the bridge where the on ramp is, once again things seem to be changing for those who love to visit there. Tonight we are in a little RV park in Alabama  and we are the only ones here and it's a weird being all alone.       G