Last year, most of our family gathered for a week’s vacation at Corolla, one of North Carolina’s  beautiful white sandy beaches on the Outer Banks.  We arrived the day after Hurricane Bertha had decided to vacate this Cape Hatteras area  (and by the way then hit Long Island as a Tropical Storm). Fortunately the damage was minimal. There are several wildlife sanctuaries on this particular chain of barrier beach islands. There is even one for the wild horses whose ancestors were originally brought to the New World by the  Conquistadors. The many different varieties of beach grasses and the seemingly everblooming Crepe Myrtle trees accent this ideal “estuarine habitat”.

The animated clip of the "Nesting Sequence of the Loggerhead Turtle" is provided by MEDASSET (Mediterranean Association to Save the Sea Turtles). The wonderful image of “Wild Mustang” © 1995 was taken by noted Outer Banks Photographer Deborah D’Onofrio. The second picture, by Tom Dinnella, is of the Bodie Lighthouse; the third shows a U.S. Fish &Wildlife Service Officer with two Red Wolf pups which have been reintroduced to the wild in the Carolinas; the fourth is a picture of the notorious wetlands reed, the invasive Phragmites australis, which provides very little to fauna in food and shelter but rather crowds out the more productive native plants. The fifth picture is a Loggerhead Turtle; the sixth shows a family of Bottlenosed Dolphins and the seventh picture is a Brown Pelican. The eighth is the surf washing up on Hatteras and the ninth one shows the swampy Alligator River at dusk. The tenth photo is of the Wright Brothers' first flight. The eleventh photo shows a Piping Plover.  The twelfth is a photo of migrating Snow Geese. The next image shows some of the beautiful flowers of the Crepe Myrtle Tree and the last picture is an Osprey landing on a weathered post.

    

                                    Nesting Sequence of Loggerhead Sea Turtles

  

  

    

  

                                                    At Ocean Shores

                                                              Where Carolina’s Beaches lie,
                                                              Torrential Rains churn Seas awry;
                                                              Bold Hurricanes go roaring by,
                                                              Cape Hatteras to terrify,
                                                              These Outer Banks, Storm’s Inner Eye,
                                                              Till gentler Winds, soft Whispers sigh.

                                                              Of Loggerheads washed up to die,
                                                              Endangered, still, we don’t know, Why?
                                                              Deft Blackbirds snatch Phragmites dry,
                                                              Red Wolves are left to multiply;
                                                              White Egrets hatch near Herons shy,
                                                              To stalk and catch less wary Fry.

                                                              Shrill Nags Head Gulls, Least Terns outcry,
                                                              Wild Horses graze Sea Oats and Rye;
                                                              As Dolphins breach ‘round Breakers high,
                                                              Those Laws of Newton to defy;
                                                              At Kitty Hawk, the Wrights did fly,
                                                              O’er Dunes of Sand, to reach the Sky.

                                                              A Beacon bright to guide our Way,
                                                              Corolla’s Light shines on Back Bay;
                                                              Safe Winter’s Home, where Snow Geese stay,
                                                              And Summer’s Children come to play,
                                                              With Ospreys, Plovers on Display;
                                                              God blessed this Fam’ly’s Holiday!
 

 

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© Howard B. Eskin 1997