posted Nov 16, 2009 5:21 AM by Scott Anderson
Here's a quick trip report from our adventures this weekend down at the
coast! See a few pictures here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/RonSutherlandNC/AlligatorRiverNovember13_142009#
We left the triangle Friday morning at around 6:30am, to get to the
refuge by 10:30. The weather was looking promising for most of the way
there, but right as we got to the coast the sky turned dark again and
the wind and rain picked back up to storm strength.
At the refuge we met with Michael Morse, a red wolf biologist who has
been with the reintroduction program since the beginning. He showed us
how they were using GPS collars to track the wolves near US 64, as part
of a highway-widening study. He also answered all of our questions about
the program, and was kind enough to talk to the group for 3 hours!
Michael also gave us the secrets to howling for the wolves, but I can't
share those with the uninitiated, sorry.
Next we went to the beach at Nags Head to get some lunch and see the
ocean, which was as wild as I've ever seen it - worse than the big
nor-easters that hit the outerbanks last fall! The waves at the Duck
Research Pier hit 5.2 meters, about 16ft. Hopefully someone else took
good pictures (please forward me the links), I didn't want my camera to
get wet. There was no beach left to stand on, we perched on top of a
beach access boardwalk over the dunes, which had already lost its
ocean-side stairs to the storm.
Next we drove back to ARNWR to drive around looking for bears.
Unfortunately, and counter to optimistic expectations, the weather got
worse instead of better, and not surprisingly no bears wanted to come
out and stand in the cold rain and howling wind for us to see them. We
did see one scraggly young raccoon (=red wolf food).
Part of the group decided to head back home at this point, quite
understandably as the weather showed no signs of slacking off, and our
canoe trip on Saturday had been canceled due to the weather.
Four of us stayed on to camp at Pettigrew State Park, at least in part
because we were too tired to drive home after getting up so early. The
road to the park from Creswell was totally underwater, but we drove it
anyway, as it wasn't flowing much and other cars were doing the same.
The wind howled all night, but the rain had actually stopped by the time
we set up our tents, so that was nice.
The next day we packed up and took a long driving tour of the peninsula,
heading down 94 to Lake Mattamuskeet, then cutting over on 264 to 45, up
to Pocosin Lakes NWR. Found the only snake of the trip, a DOR
cottonmouth, on the road on the north side of Mattamuskeet. Every house
on that road had been converted into a hunting lodge, with half a dozen
big pickup trucks with dog boxes parked outside. The roads at PL NWR
were much muddier than at Alligator River, which was bad for driving on
in Toyota Corollas, but good for wildlife tracks! We saw some really
good bear tracks and other miscellaneous wildlife prints.
We ended up having to walk a mile down a flooded road to get to Pungo
Lake, which was great fun, but there ended up not being any waterfowl
out at the lake when we got there. We had seen a few scattered flocks of
tundra swans flying overhead during the day on Saturday.
We ended the trip with a nice late lunch at the Hitchingpost restaurant
in Williamston. As you might infer from the fact that I am sending this
message Sunday morning, we decided it wasn't worth fighting the weather
one more night, though I am sure the wildlife would have been abundant
today with the return of nice weather!
All in all, not a bad effort for a trip that shared a weekend with a
very powerful coastal storm! Every where we went there was water, from
the high seas at Nags Head, to the flooded mobile homes in Creswell.
Gave us an excellent sense of what a couple of feet of sea level rise
would do to this important conservation area. |
posted Oct 13, 2009 4:38 AM by Scott Anderson
[
updated Oct 13, 2009 5:14 AM
]
October 2-4, 2009
We had a great trip
to Nags Head Woods this weekend! The Nature Conservancy provided a nice beach
house for people to stay in while volunteering on the preserve. We
collected about 12 big trash bags full of invasive plants, not bad for a total
team of six people plus the preserve manager. We also took another tour of
Alligator River NWR Saturday night, and managed to see another 6 bears, 4 of
which were walking together behind one of the canals.
Run Hill
 Leopard Frog
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posted Sep 23, 2009 8:41 AM by Scott Anderson
Check out these photos from Ron on the recent Sandhills herping trip!
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posted Sep 23, 2009 8:33 AM by Scott Anderson
[
updated Sep 23, 2009 8:41 AM
]
Check out photos here and here by Ron from the July 2009 Alligator River Trip!
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posted Sep 23, 2009 8:21 AM by Scott Anderson
[
updated Sep 23, 2009 8:33 AM
]
A great time was had by all collecting wiregrass seed for replanting!
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