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Re: Hurricane, etc.



Dear Lena & Carolinabirders,

I'm fine, as are Keith and Diane and Spurgeon, and everyone else.  The
Miss Hatteras is fine, as are nearly all of the charter boats in
Hatteras Village.  I don't know about the Country Girl, but I have not
inquired yet, as there is plenty to deal with down here on Hatteras
Island or should I say Hatteras Village Island and Hatteras Island.

The village of Hatteras is indeed cut off by a series of three small
inlets, maybe a quater mile across in total.  Supplies are coming in via
ferry from Stumpy Point twice daily, and those of us who live in Frisco
or Buxton but have ties to Hatteras Village are going over by skiff.  It
will be quite a while before the road is restored, but many village
residents do have electricity and telephone service (not just cell
phones), and crews are presently working to run a water line over.  A
number of village residents lost their homes, either entirely or
temporarily, as some buildings have been condemned.  A number of the
village's motels have either been destroyed or severely damaged.  The
Hatteras Cabanas, bunch of little self contained efficiencies managed by
Dolphin Realty, which were located between the Durant Station Motel and
the General Mitchell Motel, are strewn around the village several
hundred yards across from where they were once rooted in the sand.  Of
40 or so cabanas, only about ten remain on site.  The Sandbar and Grill
is reduced to a shell of a building.  Taste Buds Bakery is gone.  There
are lots of sinkholes around the village, and the amount of debris is
hard to imagine without seeing it first-hand.  It is amazing to me that
no one was killed or seroiusly injured during the ordeal.  A number of
residents had close calls.  Someone reported watching a wave break over
the Sea Gull Motel from their home across the road.  The buoy that was
moored near the Diamond Tower 12 miles off Cape Hatteras reported waves
at 44.6 feet at 0300 on Sept. 18, and may have been adrift at that
point, but that was hours before all hell broke loose in Hatteras.

It just goes to show how much damage a Category 1 or 2 storm can heap on
an area that bears the brunt of the ocean surge and wind.  It is
unfortunate, but it is part of the risk we take living out here in the
sea.  Some may not realize that the dunes that are now mostly gone were
man-made anyway, and the early residents of the island did not have
these additional dunes because there was originally not a road there to
protect.  I'm sure everyone has their own opinion about how this problem
should be dealt with or not (let nature take it's course?).  I
personally don't have time to entertain this debate and Carolinabirds is
not the appropriate forum, so I would like to discourage that potential
thread before it starts here.

As for me, I'm lucky to be living east of the cut in Frisco, but I
realize it is a fragile thread that runs from here to the Oregon Inlet
bridge.

Obviously the future of pelagic departures from Hatteras Village is
uncertain for a while.  We will probably run our October trip from
Wanchese.  I will report again on that when I have more details.

By the way, I headed up to Va.just prior to the storm and found some
interesting pelagic birds up there.  The morning after the storm passed
by, I arrived at Kerr Dam early to check for storm waifs.  Needless to
say, I was a bit excited to find a light morph Herald Petrel in the road
up on top of the dam.  I rescued it from oncoming traffic (really), and
I was later able to show it to Russ and Patricia Tyndall who arrived
just minutes later.  The only other really deep water bird that we could
find there was a Band-rumped Storm-Petrel, which lingered all day.
Around noon I headed east, and a few hours later I was at the Chesapeake
Bay Bridge-Tunnel, where I released the petrel, which was apparently
just tired, hungry, and probably dehydrated.  There was a much better
showing of pelagic birds there at the mouth of the bay than there had
been at the lake, and I was lucky enough to see a White-tailed
Tropicbird and several other species of pelagic birds including
Black-capped Petrel and both Leach's and Band-rumped Storm-Petrels in
addition to dozens of Bridled Terns.   In all, I believe I saw 11
species of pelagic seabirds that day, and I'm glad to say that most
seemed to be functioning well, though many seemed to be hemmed in by the
bridge, as they did not often head offshore through the channel over the
tunnel.  But it could be they were using the coastline to orient to some
extent, and they may have headed offshore at the southern channel closer
to the beach.   One surprise with the storm was a lack of Sooty Terns.
Sooty Tern is usually the dominant pelagic species to be blown ashore by
these systems.  I'm not really sure why, maybe the shrinking eye of the
storm had something to do with it.  I also thought there would have been
more Black-capped Petrels blown inland, but I'm glad they weren't this
time.  I also thought someone might see a White-faced Storm-Petrel at
the CBBT, but it didn't happen.

Thanks for your concern, and I hope to see some of you on our trip
aboard the Miss Hatteras in a couple of weeks.

Brian Patteson
Frisco, NC
brian@patteson.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lena B. Gallitano" <lbg@ncsu.edu>
To: <Carolinabirds@duke.edu>; "Brian Patteson"
<patteson1@mindspring.com>
Cc: "Lynn Barber" <DALYBAR@aol.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 10:05 PM
Subject: Hurricane, etc.


Good evening,

Has anyone heard directly from any of our birding associates south of
the Nags Head area?  Specifically Brian Patteson, the captains and crews
of the Miss Hatteras and Country Girl and Keith and Diane of the Cape
Pines Motel?    I heard on the news today that the marina at Hatteras
Village did not sustain a lot of damage and I'm sure the boats were
moved to safe harbor.  However, it would be nice to get an update
particularly if there is something we might be able to do to help out.

Over the weekend, I had an email regarding two baby doves that appeared
to be abandoned.  Thank goodness I had just watched two babies in my own
yard so I could give some advice - Mom did come for them each evening
and they were quite okay.  Here is another heart warming story that
resulted from that inquiry:

MY BROTHER SAYS TWO DOVES SHOWED UP ON THEIR FRONT PORCH ABOUT 20 YEARS
AGO AND HIS YOUNG DAUGHTER WENT OUT AND GATHERED THEM UP AND PUT THEM IN
A BIRD CAGE. THE NEXT MORNING, THE MOTHER DOVE WAS WAITING AT THE FRONT
DOOR FOR HER CHILDREN. BETH, THE DAUGHTER, WENT OUT ON THE PORCH AND LET
THE LITTLE ONES OUT.  THIS, ACCORDING TO MY BROTHER, HAPPENED FOR
SOMETIME UNTIL THE DOVES GOT BIG ENOUGH THAT THEY STOPPED COMING BY. SHE
WOULD TAKE THEM IN THE HOUSE, THE MOTHER WOULD SHOW UP AT THE FRONT
DOOR, SHE WOULD TAKE THEM OUT AND OFF THEY WOULD FLY.

If you haven't done so recently, you might want to check the Audubon NC
website http://www.ncaudubon.org/ for the latest update on the OLF -
there have been some interesting editorials in various papers.

Unfortunately, my plans to attend CBC last weekend crashed along with
the maple tree that fell on my patio.  However, all was not lost because
Lynn Barber was visiting when her trip to the coast also crashed with
Isabel so we birded along the Alleghany Trail between Whitaker Mill Road
and Anderson Drive and then along Fallon Park - we saw 39 species but
these were my favorites:

Cooper's Hawk - an eye-eye view on an wire just as we left the house
Cedar Waxwing
Red-eyed Vireo - many
Acadian Flycatcher - still singing sporadically
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Yellow-billed Cuckoo - one decimating a huge caterpillar
Veery
Swainson's Thrush
Scarlet Tanager
Redstart

Good birding,

Lena

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Lena Gallitano
Raleigh, NC