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Ocracoke Diary



Fran and I are winding up a three day Ocracoke interlude, cruising the
beach and walking several miles, beach and soundside. We didn't
encounter anything surprising but did find a few interesting birds,
mainly at the south end of Ocracoke Island. That area, involving several
SQUARE MILES of tidal mud flats, has great potential.

First, I must comment on the numbers of Double-crested Cormorants in
this area. From 25+ years of participating in the coastal Christmas Bird
Counts, I'm accustomed to seeing  impressive numbers of cormorants, most
often as they leave roosting locations in Pamlico Sound each morning.
Probably due to huge schools of menhaden, near shore, in the ocean, we
have daily witnessed enormous numbers of cormorants, Northern Gannets
and Brown Pelicans. Gulls, of course, have contributed to the numbers.
As I know no reasonable method for estimating such numbers, I'll just
wildly speculate that the numbers of feeding birds approached several
hundred thousand, perhaps a million! It took several hours for the
cormorant numbers to peak, and later, to dissipate when the feeding
frenzie finally subsided. Long, undulating strings of the birds seemed
to materialize and disappear from all western points of the compass. 
Alas, two large menhaden vessels arrived today (Wednesday) and likely
cleaned out the huge school of fish.

Also of interest:

	Piping Plovers (9)  Ocracoke flats
	Black-bellied Plovers (28)  Ocracoke flats
	Lesser Black-backed Gull (1 adult) Ocracoke beach	
	American Oystercatcher (3)  Ocracoke flats
	Merlin (1) perched on the body of a dead Great 	
    Blackbacked Gull
	Dunlin (1) keeping a very low profile, reluctant to   
	flush, with the Merlin a few hundred yards away.
	Common Loon (6) all dead and found at the hightide line.
	We did not see ANY live loons.
	
and most sadly, 5 dead Loggerhead Turtles, likely drowned in trawler
nets and washed up on the soundside of the Ocracoke flats. How many
turtles are lost each year to trawlers? Are there not several
undiscovered drownings for each one that washes ashore in an open area?

Wayne & Fran Irvin
Ocracoke, Hyde County, NC