1.14- "Capt. Cecil" and Yellow-Shafted Northern Flicker

"Captain Cecil," tied up stern-to at the Garland Fulcher Seafood Co. docks on Raccoon Creek

Captain Cecil was tied stern-to the docks while crew pulled out, straightened and re-wound her warp cables this afternoon.

As you can see, all was calm in the creek, and yesterday's rain and clouds have departed.

Can anyone help me identify these birds?

Please drop me a comment or e-mail if you can help!

[OK, thanks to Keith Bruno and Raf for identifying this bird for me!]

I saw these two birds by the roadside in Minnessot Beach today, and was only able to grab about three drive-by shots of them...

One is seen flying away, while the other waited warily for me to pass by. I looked through my NatGeo Birds of North America guide, to no avail... (I need to find my Peterson's Guide)

[UPDATE: Keith Bruno dropped me a note identifying this as a "a flicker, possibly the yellow shafted variety"... Then, while I was writing this update, Raf from Port Townsend, WA dropped me a comment to the same effect... Yes indeedy, my NatGeo guide does have an illustration and description of the very bird as a Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), "Yellow-shafted" variety... I had not looked carefully through the Woodpecker section because I spotted these birds hanging out on the ground, which seemed unlikely woodpecker behavior... various internet sources confirm that the Flicker, unlike other woodpeckers, forages on the ground for ants and such...

As the NatGeo guide describes them: "Two distinct groups occur: "Yellow-shafted Flicker" in the east and far north, and "Red-shafted Flicker" in the west.... brown, barred back; spotted underparts, with black crescent bib. White rump is conspicuous in flight [see my flight photo below]... "Yellow-shafted Flicker" has yellow wing lining and undertail color..."

Another new one for my life list and my photo life list, Yay!]

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12.10- Above the fog

The outriggers of a trawler peak out above the fog on Raccoon Creek

Fog covered many waterways today, including the Neuse River, Oriental harbor and nearby creeks.

As warm (70+ degrees F) air soaked with moisture (97% humidity) moved over cooler water, fog formed... such fog is called "advection fog."

I went to the top of the Hwy. 55 bridge for this shot... It was about 4:00 PM, and I was standing about 50 feet above the water, just about the limit of the surrounding fog below.

I could barely make out the harbor's breakwater and the Neuse River beyond that was invisible, completely covered in fog.

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11.03- "Lady Hawk" and "Emily Brooke"

The "Emily Brooke" heads out of Oriental Harbor towards Pamlico Sound, as the "Lady Hawk" sails upriver

Another shot taken from the Bauer 10 Classic as I was sailing out in the Neuse River.

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9.16- Welding an outrigger

A worker welds a support to the starboard outrigger of the trawler "Betty H."

"Betty H" has been undergoing some repairs for the last week while tied up at the Garland Fulcher Seafood Co. docks on Raccoon Creek.

I have seen this guy doing welding in various spots on the starboard side of the deck on top of the cabin area behind the pilot house... Now I see that he must have been welding the base of the long white (albeit somewhat rusty) pole that extends from the deck to where he is welding it to the black outrigger.

The pole appears to be a supporting bracket that pivots with the outrigger as it is lowered/raised into the horizontal/vertical positions.

I guess these outriggers take a pretty good beating... see another trawler with a damaged outrigger (and a discussion of outriggers, trawlers, troll poles, and trolling) in my July 21 posting, "Amazing Grace..."

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9.14- Parade of Shrimp Boats

Four commercial trawlers (shrimp-boats) leaving Oriental Harbor as the weekend shrimping curfew ends.
(Click on picture for full size)

I was out sailing on the Neuse River in the Bauer dinghy today when these four shrimp-boats left Oriental harbor and headed down the Neuse River for a new week of shrimping. (yes, there are four trawlers in the picture... the second closest one is mostly obscuring the third closest, but you can just see the third's starboard outrigger peeking out just below the second's starboard outrigger...click on picture for full size... or, see all four in today's slide show on sister blog "The Dinghy Dock")

There is a shrimping curfew from Friday midnight to Sunday noon, so on Sunday afternoon most of the commercial shrimp boats leave their weekend berths at Garland Fulcher Seafood Co. and Point Pride Seafood Co. to go out shrimping.

I was sailing near Oriental Marker #1 when these four trawlers started coming out. In reverse order of departure (from closest to furthest in the above photo), they were:

• "Amanda Ashley" - 73 foot, 92 tons, owned by Forest H. Williams, Sr., Grantsboro NC
  
• "Emily Brooks" - 73 foot, 108 tons, owned Sherrill Styron"
  
• Capt. Cecil" - 75 foot, 130 tons, owned by Sherrill Styron
• "Goldie Marie" - 73 foot, 93 tons, owned by Chris Fulcher

Mr. Chris Fulcher owns "Point Pride Seafood," while Mr. Sherrill Styron owns "Garland Fulcher Seafood," which can be a bit confusing at first.

The late Garland Fulcher was the local fishing baron and Chris Fulcher's father. Sherrill Styron was Mayor of Oriental for 24 years, and is now a Town Commissioner. I don't know anything about Mr. Forest Williams of nearby Grantsboro.

"Point Pride Seafood" is on the Eastern side of Raccoon Creek (on the right side of the banner/title photo at top of page), while "Garland Fulcher Seafood" is on the Western side (on the left in banner/title photo at top of page.)

"Point Pride Seafood" sits on a property with a very long and interesting history in Oriental... the point of land it is on, at the confluence of Raccoon Creek and the Neuse River, was known as "Chadwick Point" in the late 19th century, and was home to two lumber mills at the time the town was chartered in 1899... one of the mills was owned by Robert Midyette, who in 1873 purchased the 350 acres of land on which the town was founded.

(For some reason, local lore credits Robert Midyette's nephew, "Uncle Lou" Midyette -- half of the namesake of "Lou-Mac Park" -- as the "founder" of Oriental, but my research indicates that Robert Midyette was the actual owner of the land and the real mover and shaker behind the town's creation)

"Raccoon Creek" was also known as the "log pond" when the Chadwick Point lumber mills were operating because "rafts" of logs which had been cut down farther up the local creeks were floated down to Raccoon Creek where they floated while awaiting milling at the Chadwick Point mills.

The Chadwick Point land was eventually purchased by the "Oriental Bulkhead and Improvement Company" in a fascinating (and ultimately disastrous for the OBIC) land development scheme, about which I'm sure I will explain more in a future posting.

Anyway, enough about Oriental history... today it looked like "Goldie Marie" was going shrimping on Garbacon Shoal, just across the Neuse River from Oriental (you can see Goldie Marie in the distance, turning off to starboard), while the others proceeded farther down the Neuse and possibly into Pamlico Sound.

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7.21- Amazing Grace, She Needs a Fix, To Save a Wrecked Port-Pole

"Amazing Grace" isn't out shrimping today... she is tied up at Point Pride Seafood with a maimed port-side outrigger.

Shrimp trawlers suspend nets, attached with cables, from the boat's two outriggers, which are lowered into horizontal positions for trawling... The boats are rigged so that the nets sweep along just above the bottom of the river or sea, while bottom-crawling cables called "ticklers" prompt the bottom-dwelling shrimp to swim up into the paths of the nets.

The vessels also tow large wooden "doors" that act as underwater wings to spread the two ends of the net wide apart to increase the catch area (they do indeed look like doors, from cottage-sized doors to cathedral-sized doors... you can see one hanging from the rigging above the aft deck on the starboard side of this trawler).

The outriggers also provide stability to the vessel the same way a tightrope walker uses a balancing pole. They lower the outriggers into horizontal positions once the vessel is underway, even when they are not trawling with the nets.

I understand that essentially identical commercial vessels can also "troll" for fish by using such outriggers to suspend numerous fishing lines with baited hooks as the boat pulls them through the water... Such boats are called "trollers" rather than "trawlers," and their outriggers are known as "troll poles"... slowly traveling with baited lines is called, not surprisingly, "trolling."

Most of the commercial trawlers operating out of slips at Oriental harbor's two fish-houses ("Fulcher Seafood" and "Point Pride Seafood") are shrimp trawlers, at least at this time of year.

However it works, this shrimping season so-far promises to be a huge one, from what I hear on the street.

By evening, the damaged outrigger had been removed.

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