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EVE TUREK'S NATURAL OUTER BANKS
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| Wednesday, May 01, 2013 | | Let the Light Shine... | This is going to be a bit of a departure from my usual nature-focused blog. Instead, this one focuses just a little bit on history.
On Friday April 18, the Bodie Island Light was re-lit in a beautiful ceremony that honored its long history. The current lighthouse was built on this spot in 1872, and was powered by whale oil. Back when I moved here as a young adult in the mid 1970s, I knew a women who (if my memory is correct) grew up at the light as a daughter of the last keeper, before the light was electrified. The ceremony honored both the US Coast Guard as a former guardian agency, and the National Park Service as its current guardian. Guest speakers talked about the restoration project that began in 2009, when the light went dark, and ultimately resulted in repairs that allow the lighthouse to be opened to the public for climbing for the first time in its history!
I was fortunate to climb the lighthouse that week and a few photos are below. The Bodie Light climbs are ranger-guided and provide a lot of history as well as stunning views! Reservations are required. I was so grateful after all these years to be able to go up.
When the ceremony concluded, the dignitaries called for young descendants of original keepers to come forward; in a great feat of technology, the staff had rigged a 7-part switch so that each youngster had a part in the actual re-lighting. I stayed around until dusk to see and photograph the light really shining again.
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click for larger image | Here is one reason I climbed to the top: I wanted to see the First Order Fresnel Lens. I went up with a special climbing party of media and we were able to peek at the newly cleaned and reassembled lens. It is HUGE. |
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click for larger image | I did not take any photos of the speech-makers. But the USCG Honor Guard was impressive. |
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posted by eturek at 11:12 PM |
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| Sunday, April 14, 2013 | | A Matter of Perspective | As a wildlife and nature photographer, I often apply photographic metaphors to daily life. I think about “my perspective” or “my point of view”; I think about what “lens” I have on any given situation. When I go outside with the idea in mind that I am going to photograph a bird or a critter, I usually plan to carry the longest lens I have, in order to bring the farther-away closer to my view…and thus to my viewers as well. Long lenses come in especially handy when a) the critter is spooky, and a close approach will startle or frighten it b) when the critter is very far away and there is no opportunity, due to position or landscape or some other reason to move closer c) when moving closer might put you or the critter in danger (which is why there are laws about separation between us and the wild horses of Carova, for instance) or d) when the critter is small to begin with—like a songbird across the yard, say.
Right at the end of March I got a phone call two days running from volunteers with NEST—the organization that watches out for sea turtles up our way—that there was a harbor seal “hauled out” on the beach to rest, not far from the gallery. I’ve been longing for the opportunity to watch and photograph a seal ever since their numbers seemed to increase on our beaches a couple years back.
I learned some cool seal facts from the volunteers who had already roped off an area of non-disturbance so the seal could rest. (Hence the long lens.) The first fact was just that: these seals come ashore not necessarily because they are ailing, but to rest out of the cold water on warmer sands. March, which came in like a lion, finally gave us a taste of spring lamb-like weather with some sunshine. The resting seal I saw on the first day looked to me to be doing anything but resting: its head was up, its tail was up, and if I tried to lay long in that position my stomach muscles would protest mightily!! Seal Works Abs might be a good caption for that pose, but turns out that is a sign of a happy and healthy seal! I watched it yawn, noticing its teeth (seals feed on fish) and I especially noticed how vigilant it was, how sensitive to noises. Seals don’t have external ears, but their hearing is extraordinary under water—on land, it is about as good as the average human’s, which is to say, much better than my own. Their eyes are designed to work with the refraction of light under water so their out-of-water eyesight is poorer than ours.
The seal that beached itself the next day seemed more fatigued. It did not often raise its tail while I was present and moved around a lot less than the previous day’s seal did. Both seals stayed on shore for most of one day and then they disappeared back into the ocean. I am so grateful I got a chance to be in their presence.
The same day I saw the first seal, I also saw our Yellowhouse grey fox for the first time this year. I always worry when weeks, or in this case months, go by without an encounter. A photographer friend, Brian Horsley, had dropped by the gallery and left about 2:30 pm only to return 30 seconds later with the glad news that our fox was in the lot next door. As always, it responded to my voice and waited a few minutes to let me take a few pictures before trotted into the thicket. I saw it a couple days later in mid-morning going in the opposite direction. It looks sleeker than when I usually see the mother, as she is lean from nursing pups later in the spring. Again the long lens reveals nuances I may have missed with only my eyes.
Usually, I am aiming for the highest shutter speed I can get, given the light I have to work with. I want to stop action, freeze behavior for later study, get as much of the animal as possible in focus.
But this month I set myself, and our local chapter members of the Carolinas Nature Photographers Association, a different sort of challenge: find a way to show motion through your photographs. I chose to show motion by doing the opposite of what I usually do, and slow the shutter speed way down. This decision creates some immediate, technical problems, like how to avoid letting in so much light that the entire picture becomes a blown-out blank. And it creates some creative challenges too. How slow to go determines whether the scene is rendered in abstract streaks of color with little form, or whether the action is blurred just slightly. I chose to photograph waves, an easy and safe subject to practice with, and to include flying gulls in the images to try to give some sense of the movements that make for flight. A fun challenge, and some results are included.
A few nights later, photographer Dan Beauvais emailed those same OBX nature photographers with an invitation to join him for some radically fun slow-shutter-speed photography: making star trail images at Bodie Lighthouse! In film days, the way to do that was to carefully calculate and plan your image, then leave your shutter open for 90 minutes to two hours or more. You had basically one chance to get it right! Leaving your shutter open that long with digital cameras is possible, but that long an exposure introduces a kind of fuzzy graininess (we would have said in film days) called noise, not picturesque. So the alternative is to take a series of much shorter exposures (we used two minutes as our time frame) and combine a couple hours’ worth of those into one stacked image. If you time it right, and line up with an object centered on or near the north star, the other stars appear to be wheeling around the north star in a grand circle. Grand fun, for sure.
Finally, a few of us out of this same collective group tramped around Jockey’s Ridge Saturday afternoon. Our group meets once a month (second Monday, KDH Library in the meeting room around back, 6 pm) and also goes on monthly outings led by members. This month it was my turn to pick a place to photograph, and I’ve wanted to take these folks to the back side of Jockey’s Ridge for a long time. We saw fox tracks and some older fox dens; what I think were baby raccoon tracks near the sound’s edge; picturesque sand ripples atop the tallest dunes and at the water’s edge; and blooming wild roses. I go to the Ridge’s back side when I need to be quiet. Saturday, I was glad for the company of friends. Life keeps moving, a reality my slower shutter speed reveals—a fact I sometimes forget in my faster-paced life. I want to balance zeroing in on what is most important with that sense of movement, of going with the flow, of expressing gratitude, and making and sharing connections.
That’s my heart. That’s my focus. That’s my life.
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click for larger image | Yes, Harbor Seals are cute. But they are wild! The only way to get this close (unless you are a wildlife biologist by profession) is the way I did: with a long lens. |
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click for larger image | Here is our first look at our resident Gray Fox for 2013. Looks healthy and that makes me look happy! |
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click for larger image | This is what happens when you deliberately slow your shutter speed way down in order to show motion. In this case, I'm so slow that everything is a "pleasing blur" -- a term used by photographer Denise Ippolito, whose work I admire. |
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click for larger image | Including an image taken at twilight before many stars appear gives a sense of the early evening sky. The stars were moving then, too, of course -- we just could not see them with our eyes. |
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click for larger image | If something lights up your main subject briefly -- car lights, a flashlight -- then your final image combines that detail with the starry night. |
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click for larger image | I loved the coves and headlands on the sound side of Jockey's Ridge. This is a view most visitors miss. |
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posted by eturek at 10:42 PM |
Comments [1] |
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| Sunday, March 24, 2013 | | Spring Sleepies or Spring Forth?? | My wildlife photographer friend Jared Lloyd was sharing with several of us the other day that one way he approaches a place is to try to sum it up in one word or phrase. His word choice is obviously subjective. But he doesn’t stop there. Distilling the emotional or natural essence of a place down to one word then sets his photographic challenge: how to communicate that essence visually. As an example, he used the word “motion” for the Outer Banks.
I like how Jared thinks. I appreciate his approach to the natural world and I find in his words a new way to think about this place that has been home for me now for nearly 37 years. So I have been thinking about “Spring, Outer Banks” ever since, trying to come up with one word or phrase to sum that up. We’ve had a mostly damp, dreary, drizzly, and colder-than-last-year March. Not too much chance to be out and about with camera in hand. The words I’ve been subconsciously playing with all border on the same theme: explosive; sudden; eruption; exhale; tumultuous; ignition. Some of those words can be read in the negative, I realize, but I don’t exactly mean them that way. I’m picturing non-OBX scenes, like Old Faithful letting off steam, or 4th of July fireworks over the Capitol, or confetti greeting a new champion, or racehorses springing out of the starting gate. Those scenes provoke more words, like celebration or exuberance.
Writing this on yet another gray and drizzly afternoon, I have to be honest and tell you that I must not be in spring mode, quite yet. I’m not feeling particularly celebratory or exuberant and the only “sudden” I’m motivated to pursue today might be a sudden nap! Spring might be a verb as well as a noun, but sometimes I use it as an adjective, as in "Spring Sleepies"!
Despite myself, the world all around me is waking up from the nap it took all winter. Cultivated flowers are blooming in yards and along roadsides and native flowering plants like the dogwood are sporting larger and larger buds. Every osprey nest I watch has bustling activity now as the pairs settle in and repair or rebuild or renovate. Soon the female will be mostly housebound, incubating her eggs until they hatch. I say “mostly” because osprey Dads are more involved than many other male birds are; the male osprey will relieve the female for brief periods so she can stretch her wings and get a break to eat some fish before she returns to the nest.
Birds that change their wardrobe for springtime are sporting full breeding plumage now; for adult Pelicans, that means growing a strip of dark brown feathers at the back of the neck. Some will have splashes of yellow on their heads and on the front of their chests along with paler, blue eyes. Sanderlings gussy up by changing their paler winter wing feathers for darker feathers that seem etched in white. Laughing Gulls, whose heads are pale all winter, will don a black feather headdress and their bills and feet are a brighter red than they are at other times of the year. All of these changes seem to happen suddenly; one week, all the birds I watch look like winter, and seemingly overnight, they wear a whole new costume.
Springtime can be stormy on the Outer Banks, sort of like adolescence, but the northeast winds don’t typically last too long, and all the periods of warm sunny weather in between more than make up for the rain that will help the area avoid drought later in the year. That is what I have been telling myself this week, as I and everyone else I know wish for some prolonged sunshine and warmer temperatures.
Since I posted last, Karen Watras and I went to Carova in the middle of the month to celebrate her birthday, and we took a first-time visitor up earlier this week. The beach is noticeably narrower and the stumps are more numerous, meaning more visible, but the area still holds so much beauty and magic. Both days the beach held treasures: moon snails, whelks, and plenty of chances to play “critter rescue” as we threw back live starfish, blue crabs, or shells with critters. We found moon snail shells with moon snails and moon snail shells with hermit crabs! We found plenty with nobody at all, and these will enjoy a new life as home décor. That’s a bonus from strong northeast winds: the chance to go beachcombing at a later low tide.
All of the horses we saw were west of the primary dunes, hunkering down or grazing in more sheltered areas. The chances to see them seaside will increase as the temperatures rise, the winds shift west, and springtime flies drive them to the ocean for a little relief.
So if you are hunkered down yourself, either in northern cold and snow or southern drizzle, I hope these offerings will bring you a little celebratory exuberance. Spring may be making a coy and quiet entrance here – like a couple of band instruments tuning up – but I suspect the full orchestra will sound forth The 1812 Overture in unison any minute.
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click for larger image | The waves made for a pretty sunrise the next morning. No pelicans were out gliding in the wind. Just a couple of brave gulls. |
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click for larger image | This is Henry, the male osprey at the Colington marina. He is flying in to present what is left of his fish to his mate, Grace. |
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click for larger image | This is the male osprey from the Sandy Run park in Kitty Hawk. And this is about as close as I have ever gotten to one. He landed on a low branch and posed for Karen and I to take his picture. He looks like Sir Walter with his ruffles. |
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click for larger image | Here is a bird nest we saw in Corolla. I THINK the nearby sparrow was its maker, but I am not sure. Anybody else have an opinion? I put two photos together so you can see who I mean. |
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click for larger image | Artist EM Corsa was kind enough to let me photograph her yard birds the other afternoon. I'd like to go back in morning light. The nuthatch was brave and flew in repeatedly even with me sitting nearby. What a thrill! |
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click for larger image | Seeing large flocks of migrating birds is another sign of spring. These Gulls were constantly taking flight as the wave swells crested, only to land for a few seconds and then blast off again. |
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click for larger image | This is just a tiny collection of all of the treasures the sea gave Karen for her birthday. |
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click for larger image | These Sanderlings have the right idea: Nap Time! A perfect response to the Spring Sleepies. |
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posted by eturek at 6:08 PM |
Comments [5] |
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| Sunday, March 03, 2013 | | Early Spring... | Readers may recall that Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow, forecasting an early spring—a ritual that baffled me as a child and sometimes still does. Cloudy, gloomy weather = early spring and nice sunny weather = more winter? I didn’t get it!
But once again I think Phil was right on the money. Not so much because our temps have warmed dramatically; they haven’t. We’re still mostly in the mid-40s. Last year was much warmer, all during February. But this year I am seeing several signs of early spring, the most noticeable of which is an earlier return of the osprey!
The Colington marina osprey are back, as is at least one of the pair that nests near the Dare County courthouse in Manteo. I saw one fly over Harris Teeter yesterday afternoon, too. Pete told me he saw two fly over our yard about a week ago, but I did not see them. My official first sighting was of a male, at dusk on Feb. 27. I know for sure this bird was a male because females have a broader band of dark feathers, like a necklace, and this bird’s band was much smaller and paler.
When I finally spied the pair in the marina a couple days later, they were sitting in the tree they favor for eating their fish breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks. Osprey return to the same nest, and sit at the same table in their favorite restaurant, so to speak, year after year. When I did not see any activity at the nest, I checked the tree, and sure enough, that is where I have spotted them so far.
Whales are still spouting off the end of Jennette’s Pier, but not with the same frequency as they were a couple weeks ago. I got to share a whale spout recently with a young guy from Illinois who was working in the state and traveled to Nags Head for his first ever sight of the ocean. What a thrill to see a whale in that first encounter! I suspect our Outer Banks has worked its magic yet again, and I’m grateful to have been a small part of it.
Yesterday morning the ocean was flat and the sky turned pretty and there were no whales in evidence at all. Could they all have left on their migratory journey north? I’m learning to still my inside chatter and try to listen for the presence of someone other than myself. At times, I will call out silently, a sort of sing-song two note clarion, asking whoever might be present to come closer, to connect. For whales I have been trying to recall the recordings I have heard of the mating songs that the males sing, and then replay those, so to speak, in my mind. I’ve done that twice now this week, after waiting and waiting with no evidence of their presence, and been rewarded both times with at least one whale appearing. And yes, remembering to say “please” and “thank you.”
Speaking of appearances, I have another little story to share. Pete has planned a surprise short getaway trip for later in the spring, partly to visit dear friends we’ve not seen in too long, on Cape Cod, and partly to take me for my first trip to Maine. My parents met there near Camden in the mid-1930s and always wanted to take me on a family vacation there, but we found the Outer Banks instead! Now I will get to share the Maine coast with Pete for a couple days.
I associate whales with New England much more than I do with our part of the coast. While I was watching out for the lone whale spouting on Saturday morning, a small group of birds landed near the end of the pier. I didn’t know who they were but I took plenty of images for finding out later. On impulse when I got home, I typed “Razorbill” into Google, and sure enough, these were Razorbills! Razorbills are one of the birds I associate with Maine; they are seabirds, coming to land only to nest, and usually seen off our coast, if at all, well out from shore. Having them come to the pier precisely when I was there felt a bit like being welcomed in advance! I hope to see some more when we are north.
Other early spring signs I’ve noticed are our suddenly friskier squirrels, swelling red buds on the ends of tree limbs, cardinals pairing up, and pelicans beginning to sport their spring wardrobe, beginning with that wonderful paler blue eye.
Speaking of pelicans, I’ve long wondered if they drag the tips of their wings in the water. I have only one clear image of one bird doing that, but I’ve seen it now several times from Jennette’s Pier, and have an example to share below.
The crisp cold air has meant some glorious sunsets lately, though our sunrises have been more of a bust. We’ve had a lot of cloud cover, but when the sun drops below the clouds and paints the undersides with reds and oranges and pinks and purples the effect is wonderful, as you will see below, too.
Here’s to spring!
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click for larger image | Know what I love best about this photo? OK, two things. The light path on the water. The two pelicans gliding straight for the light. |
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click for larger image | There are whole seasons when I'm in the gallery and completely miss the sunset. This is one gift of our flexible winter schedule: the chance to be outside for a display like this. |
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click for larger image | When I took this in real time, I thought I was seeing my first fluke! When I began looking more closely on the computer, I wasn't sure. What do you think: fluke or fin? |
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click for larger image | Here's a spring sign: Robin Red-Breast! We've had large flocks of them. This flock came in after a rainfall. See the dogwood buds? |
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click for larger image | The red buds of this tree (which might BE Redbud, I am not sure) were beautiful against the grey bark of the trees surrounding. Taken on the Dare mainland. |
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click for larger image | Razorbill!! At Jennette's Pier!! How exciting!! There were at least a half-dozen that flew in. |
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click for larger image | YES! They DO trail their wings! Sometimes I take photographs for the beauty of the scene. Sometimes, to remember an encounter.This is one of the latter, Trailing Wing Pelican. I always think of children running along a fence for the joy of it... |
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click for larger image | This is the osprey at the Justice Center on Roanoke Island. I wondered why it kept looking up, so I looked up, too. |
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click for larger image | This is why! Three Red-tailed Hawks soaring above! They turned west and I did too! I'd seen one a couple days earlier on 264 and there one was again. Beautiful birds. |
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posted by eturek at 5:30 PM |
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| Thursday, February 21, 2013 | | There Be Whales Here! | Admiral, there be whales here!
Any Star Trek fans out there? That’s my favorite line from The Voyage Home. Scotty’s exuberance seems a little overstated, perhaps, until you realize that in the script, humpbacks have gone extinct on earth and the crew of the Enterprise is tasked with going back in time and fetching some to communicate with a space alien that only knows WhaleSpeak.
I’ve been quoting Scotty numerous times over the past couple of days and with exactly the same exuberance! Indeed, there be whales here – good numbers of whales, too, whole pods of them, apparently.
Considering that I saw my first whale ever in 36 years of living here just last February, and that yesterday I saw dozens stretched out over a whole day, my life list has all kinds of happy faces doodled all over it this morning.
My first call was from Jennette’s Pier in the morning; they were seeing humpbacks straight out and to the south. At one point there were at least four spouting or showing their humps at one time all over that part of the big wide ocean. Later in the day I got a call from our very own Limulus; they were gracious to let me photograph from their deck as the whales were closer in to shore than they’d been in the morning.
Since they were headed north, I headed north, but they never came as far up as Jennette’s again in late afternoon; instead, while I was waiting for them, I saw at a great distance south what I believe was my first ever breach – too far to get anything other than a huge splash (that was still pretty small even with my long lens). I abandoned Jennette’s and went back down the beach and photographed a little more from there until it was time to go in since I was about to lose the light.
Anyway, here are some water mammal pictures from the last few days: dolphins and whales, oh my. Life is wonderful.
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click for larger image | What I learned to do was to look out for the spouts. Right after the whale exhale, I would see the characteristic rounded back with its tiny dorsal fin. The spout showed me where to focus. |
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click for larger image | Here is one from earlier in the morning. The water is brighter but photography was trickier. Whales too far south disappeared in the sun on the water. Notice the spout further out from the whale I focused on. Two whales in evidence! |
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click for larger image | I love this picture for what is in the frame. Can you see the dolphin a little further out? They are beyond the white splash (not the spout). Swimming with the Big Boys. Or Girls. |
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click for larger image | This is the breach splash. You can see how far away it was, and how comparatively huge. Gannet diving splashes are much smaller and tighter. Spouts tend to be mistier and rounder. |
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click for larger image | Here is a late gift of the day, whale wave! I'd like to think it was saying, bye! See you later! This is its pectoral fin, the long fin on its underside. |
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click for larger image | I got up for sunrise a few days earlier and saw dolphins before the sun came up. It was too dark for a decent picture. I boosted my ISO which made the image "noisy" (grainy, in film days) but I love seeing how many were in this one image. |
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click for larger image | When the sun did rise, it was bright! Now the dolphins were mostly silhouetted. But I was given a treat to share: sunlit surfing dolphins. Of all the many pods I saw, this was the only one to surf. |
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click for larger image | I've longed for a pelican and dolphin in the same frame. Here they are!!! As with everything else I see and experience outside, it was a Gift. |
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posted by eturek at 11:04 AM |
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