Shackleford Banks Naturalist

10/31/2026

Two Cindys, a Linda and a Sue, island bound Halloween Eve! Thanks for the photo first Mate George!

10/30/2026

Happy Halloween Eve!
what a fitting time to talk about Hag Stones!

Hag Stones, aka Witches Stones, Hag Rocks, Holy Stones, Odin Stones. These intriguing, magical, feel good in your hand rocks can be found where the water flows strong enough to erode of sculpt softer rocks, or where living organisms reside.
You know the ones I mean. The rocks with a hole and/or sculpted curves and bumps that have a peephole in them.
In the southeast, hag stones are generally made from limestone, flint or sandstone.

A true Hag Stone, has a complete hole/s that the eye can see through, as in the first photo. There are however, those known as "partial" hag stones where the hole is not complete, as in the photo on the top right. Then there are the ones as in th middle right, where the holes have been formed by piddocks or, get ready for this, Angelwings. You know those beautiful, delicate, nearly impossible to find whole seashells...yes, those little beauties can eat a rock! The last photo is a rock that has been sculpted by the water with no points of entry.

Why feature the Hag Stone today, on Hallows Eve?
In folklore, the Hag Stone, aka Witch's Stone, was thought to protect against evil spirits, ie: witches, aka, Hags. Different areas of the world held different beliefs about the stones. In the British Isles, they were called Snake Stones. They believed that they were created by the snakes and in turn could cure snake bites and other ailments. In Scandinavia, they are called Odin Stones, named after the god of wisdom and magic, Odin. In the Mediterranean regions, they were hung around homes and worn on a cord around the neck to protect against the evil eye. SOme farmers buried them in the soil for healthy growth of crops, while others hung them in stables and barns to protect the livestock.

The holes represent a portal and a connection between spiritual and physical realms. They are today used in energy and crystal work.

I could go on, but I have a boat to catch. Look them up. They are a fascinating, natural phenomenon with a plethora of lore and beliefs!

Happy Halloween!

10/29/2026

I wanted to share an interesting photo from Tuesday.
This is the far west end of Shackleford Banks, the inlet side. Enlarge it to get your bearings. You will see the rock jetty in the background. We often talk about the sand moving about the island, and this is a good image to show such. This was low tide and you can see how much sand was pushed in and the little channels and pools it formed. I wish I had time lapsed footage from the last couple of weeks. It has been wild!

10/29/2026

Wow. Nature and Nurture.

In May 2012, a pod of transient killer whales ambushed a gray whale mother and her calf in California's Monterey Bay. After a hard fight, the orcas separated the pair and drowned the calf.

Under normal circumstances, that would have been the start of a multi-hour feeding frenzy. Instead, the local humpback whales moved in and shut the meal down.

Two humpbacks were already in the water nearby when the attack happened. Right after the calf died, about 14 more humpbacks swam in from across the bay to join them. As whale researchers including Alisa Schulman-Janiger watched from a boat, one big humpback parked itself directly alongside the floating gray whale carcass.

For the next six and a half hours, that whale refused to let the orcas eat. Every time a killer whale tried to slip in and tear a piece of blubber off the calf, the humpback blew loud bubble clouds, trumpeted, and slashed at the predators with its tail fluke and 15-foot pectoral fins. The water right around the standoff was thick with krill, the humpbacks' main food source, and the whales ignored all of it to keep the killer whales pushed back. It remains the longest confrontation between humpbacks and killer whales ever recorded.

To find out if the Monterey Bay standoff was just a strange one-off event, marine ecologist Robert Pitman and Schulman-Janiger pulled together 115 documented accounts of humpbacks squaring off with killer whales across decades of global field records, publishing their findings in *Marine Mammal Science* in 2016.

What they found was that humpbacks routinely go out of their way to pick fights with mammal-eating killer whales. Out of all those encounters, the humpbacks were the ones initiating the contact 57 percent of the time, often swimming in from miles away as soon as the orcas started vocalizing during a hunt.

Even stranger was what the killer whales were actually hunting when the humpbacks showed up. In only 11 percent of the attacks were the orcas going after another humpback. The other 89 percent of the time, the humpbacks charged in to break up attacks on completely different animals, including gray whales, harbor seals, stellar sea lions, and Dall's porpoises. In one case, humpbacks swam over to harass killer whales that were going after a pair of ocean sunfish.

While it is easy to look at a whale guarding another species and call it compassion, the researchers point toward a much more practical survival instinct. Mammal-eating killer whales rarely kill adult humpbacks, which weigh up to 40 tons and carry barnacle-crusted flippers that act like clubs, so they target young humpback calves instead. In fact, many of the adult humpbacks seen charging into these fights carry thick white rake marks on their flukes from surviving orca teeth when they were calves themselves.

Pitman and his colleagues suspect the behavior starts with a simple rule of thumb: whenever humpbacks hear the distinct calls of mammal-eating killer whales going on the attack, they swim straight toward the commotion to defend any calf in danger, which might be a relative. By the time the humpbacks arrive on the scene, their instinct to mob the predators and run them out of the area takes over, even if the animal in trouble turns out to be a sea lion, a sunfish, or a gray whale calf that is already dead.

Image is for illustration purposes only.

Source: Pitman et al. (2016), Marine Mammal Science 33(1): 7–58 / National Geographic (2016).

10/28/2026

Black and Blue
a noir study of birds...
A Great Blue Heron preens in the breeze as it's tiny tufts float about it's body!

© Annie Po Photo - Cindy Kaye Smith

10/28/2026

Its worth looking into...

Every election matters for sea turtles! 🗳️☑️

Decisions made at the local, state, and federal level impact how sea turtles and their habitats are protected. Have you voted yet?

10/27/2026

Friends, this is so important. We are a major byway for migrating birds, many young and inexperienced at migrating.
The flock doesn't stop and wait for the weak, so we must.
Please read and keep OWLS number in your phone contacts.
252-240-1200.

10/26/2026

10/26/2026

Eleven years ago in Taylors Creek in mid-December.
Absolutely breath taking migration of the cormorant, loon, pelican migration. You may here me gasp a bit. Sorry for the turn of camera.
We were en route to our boat from lunch. when we were blessed with this.
I've been waiting for another moment like this since.
For as far as you can see, there the creek was black with loons.
Photo/Video Credit: Diane Eckland.