Egg-Laying and 

 Seed-Sowing 



Fast at work on 

 estuary bottoms and 

 tidal flats is the 

 knobbed whelk. 



North America's 

 largest saltwater snail. 

 The knobbed whelk 

 lays its eggs inside a 

 stiff case that's 

 designed to keep 

 predators away. The 

 egg case is a long, thin 

 necklace of papery 

 packets. These look 

 like umbilical cords or a 

 snake's shedded skin. 

 Knobbed whelks lay two 

 sets of eggs: one in spring 

 and one in fall. 



In the fall, you can find 

 the whelk's egg cases dried up 

 on the beach. Each segment 

 contains hundreds of eggs that 

 would have hatched tiny 

 whelks had the case remained 

 safe on the estuary floor. The 

 whelks hatch inside the egg 

 case, then chew their way 

 out of the segments 

 through a tiny hole at 

 the top. 



The knobbed whelk, 

 which is named for the knobs on its 

 spire, stalks the bottom of the estuary 

 for clams, oysters and mussels. When it 

 finds them, it pries their shells open 

 and sucks the meat out with its radula, 

 a rough band that holds tiny teeth. 



The marbled salamander avoids 

 predators, namely fish, by laying its 

 eggs in shallow temporary pools 

 throughout the Coastal Plain as well as 

 the Piedmont. As the leaves turn red 

 and brown, around September and 

 October, these ponds come to life after 

 lying dry during spring and summer. 



The salamander eggs (covered 

 with a slightly sticky skin) go into a 

 "holding pattern," says Alvin Braswell, 

 the curator of amphibians at the N.C. 

 State Museum of Natural Sciences. 

 This stage usually lasts for a few 



weeks. When autumn rains 

 come and fill up the pools, the 

 eggs hatch and grow into 4-inch 

 amphibians, black with irregular 

 patches of gray or white. 

 How can the salamanders 

 tell where dry ground will fill with 

 water? 



Braswell says scientists think the 

 trick is the scent. The salamanders can 

 smell the dried microcrustaceans and 

 other organisms left in the soil from 

 last year's pools. The advantage of this 

 type of habitat, says Braswell, is the 

 reduction in the numbers of predators. 

 "Sites that dry up don't have a lot of 

 fish," he says. 



Although egg cases and 

 salamander sites may pass each 

 year unnoticed, it's easy to spot 

 the colors of an autumn 

 marsh. This change is caused 

 by reproduction of another 

 kind. In the fall, marsh plants 

 go to seed. Tufts of yellow 

 cordgrass seed fly off in the 

 wind and cover the marsh, 

 creating a hearty meal for mice, 

 sparrows and waterfowl. 

 For marsh fish, millions of 

 tiny insect eggs provide a winter 

 meal. In the fall, mosquitoes, 

 midges and other marsh insects lay 

 their eggs in the mud on the banks of 

 the marsh. Sometimes the eggs float 

 across the surface of the water, where 

 they are snapped up by hungry fish. 

 The eggs nestled in the mud will 

 rest through fall and 

 winter until they are 

 sprinkled by spring rains 



"Fall is the time that many 

 sexually adult species of fish 

 come together to make 

 their spawning runs, 

 moving into the shallow 

 waters around inlets to 

 mate," says Jim Bahen, of the N.C. 

 Sea Grant Marine Advisory Service. 



That's when good fishermen take 

 notice of big fish in large numbers. 



"For an angler, it's the best time of 

 the year," says Bahen. "Although the 

 part-time fisherman may go deer 



hunting in the fall, the full-time fisher- 

 man is going to go after the speckled 

 trout or red drum." 



During the fall, scores of red drum 

 and bluefish are caught off Cape 

 Hatteras. Near the Outer Banks, where 

 warm and cold waters meet, there are 

 large concentrations of striped bass. 

 Speckled trout spawn where coastal 

 rivers meet the ocean. Maturing croaker, 

 spot and summer flounder move 

 offshore to winter spawning grounds. 



Many fish migrate to spawn, but 

 others are searching for food or warmer 

 waters. Some king mackerel are here 

 year-round; others migrate north in 

 spring and south during fall to stay in 

 waters no colder than 68 F. In the fall, 

 some pelagic fish also head south. 

 Fishermen can catch bluefin tuna, black 

 marlin and billfish. 



Moves and Migrations 



In autumn, the estuaries are teeming 

 with fish and the piers are elbow-to- 

 elbow with anglers. But some folks can't 

 take their eyes off the sky. From now 

 until November, North Carolina will be 

 visited by migrating songbirds, land 

 birds, shorebirds, waterfowl, even 

 hawks. From the Alaskan tundra, the 

 Arctic, Canada and the Northeast they 

 come, passing » through on 

 their way f south. 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 3 



