N. C. 

 Doc. 



University of North Carolina 

 Sea Grant Program 



NEWSLETTER 



AUGUST, 1975 



Dredge 

 island 

 drama . 



... a story about 

 birds and men 



White ibises nest in dense thicket 

 on Battery Island. 



1235 Burlington Laboratories 

 NCSU, Raleigh, N.C. 27607 Tel: (919) 737-2454 



^4 colony of royal terns nest on 

 almost bare sands of lower Cape 

 Fear River dredge island. 



It wasn't New York's Grand Central Station or 

 Chicago's O'Hare Airport or a Los Angeles free- 

 way jammed bumper to bumper. 



But that island in the lower Cape Fear River 

 had to be about the busiest spot in the world for 7 

 o'clock on a muggy July morning. 



For once, man wasn't a character in the drama. 

 The island, you see, belonged to the birds, thou- 

 sands of swooping, scooping, sweeping, swishing, 

 screaming birds. Thousands of adults circled in the 

 air. Thousands of young stampeded on the beach. 

 All screamed. It was a birdwatcher's paradise. 



Royal terns held crown to the island, built over 

 the years by the ongoing struggle to keep naviga- 

 tion routes dredged deep. The last time he brought 

 dredging machines to the island, man actually 

 helped royal terns. Spoil dumped there some three 

 years ago buried plant life, leaving the kind of 

 barren sands that the white-plumed,, orange- 

 beaked birds prefer for nesting. In June they 

 showed up on the island 10,000 strong to rear 

 their young. 



Battery Island is only a few miles down river 



(See "Researchers," page 4) 



