THE CHANGING SEASONS: CORNUCOPIA 
kilometers offshore of northern Florida. A 
Magnificent Frigatebird inland at Newnan’s 
Lake 5 September and a White-tailed Trop- 
icbird at Indialantic, Brevard County 2 Sep- 
tember were notable pelicaniforms in Florida; 
three Sooty Shearwaters off Crandon Park, 
Miami-Dade County 10 September were 
harder to connect with the storm. A Magnifi- 
cent Frigatebird at Beaufort, North Carolina 6 
September, one on Virginia’s Eastern Shore 7 
September, another on Long Island that day, 
and one at Cape May, New Jersey the next day 
(the latter unidentified to species) were cer- 
tainly also Hanna birds. 
Like Ernesto of early September 2006, Han- 
na was a tern storm for the most part, though 
far fewer birds, and virtually no tubenoses 
(one Cory’s Shearwater in Maryland on the 
coast excepted), were associated with Hanna, 
which also lacked Ernesto’s heavy rains and 
vnnd (see the S. A. Box in the Middle Atlantic 
report). Sooty Terns, with 52+ reported north 
of Florida, dominated the tally sheets again, 
with four in Georgia 5 September, 21 in North 
Carolina 6-8 September, 19+ in Maryland 6-7 
September, three in Virginia 6 September, two 
in the District of Columbia 6 September, one 
in Delaware 6 September, and two in New Jer- 
sey 6-7 September. Bridled Terns, always the 
bridesmaids, were less numerous — -just eight 
in North Carolina 6 September, one in Mary- 
land that day, and singles in New Jersey and 
New York 7 September. Given the concentra- 
tions of active, astute birders between the 
Carolinas and New York, it is likely that Han- 
na did not have extensive impact on seabird 
populations; see sections below on terns and 
other sundries for the rest of the story. 
IKE 
A Cape Verde-origin cyclone, Ike was named 
a tropical storm 1 September soon after it had 
come off the coast of Africa, and it remained a 
tropical storm until 3 September, when it un- 
derwent explosive intensification; satellite- 
derived data suggest that it strengthened from 
a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane in 
twelve hours, with an estimated pressure drop 
of 43 millibars, from 991 to 948 millibars. 
The storm shredded Great Inagua Island and 
Grand Turk Island, where most of the build- 
ings were destroyed. Ike crossed Cuba 8 Sep- 
tember, moving along of the southern coast of 
Cuba until it reached the Gulf of Mexico the 
next day, where it grew both in size and 
strength. It made landfall on Galveston Island 
13 September as a strong Category 2 hurri- 
cane, with a monster storm surge from Galve- 
ston Island into southern Louisiana. 
The Bolivar Peninsula, Galveston Island, 
and the Port Arthur areas had extensive dam- 
age; surge of up to four and half meters inun- 
dated millions of acres of coastal woodland 
and prairie habitats vital to both resident and 
migrant birds. Mark Lockwood and team in 
Texas write that “the impact on the birds was 
dramatic, with most of these areas missing 
their permanent residents in the weeks after 
the storm” — very similar to the aftermath of 
Katrina in Louisiana. It was Texas’s worst hur- 
ricane in recorded history and the third most 
destructive U.S.. hurricane, after Katrina 
(2005) and Andrew (1992). The surge impact 
on the Louisiana coast was higher than from 
Gustav in many areas, and surge in southwest- 
ern Louisiana was even worse than in Rita of 
2005, largely because Ike was such a large 
storm. Steve Cardiff writes: “In terms of habi- 
tat damage, [/fee’s] unwanted burst of coastal 
erosion was devastating for barrier islands and 
marshlands, and Gustav caused incredible tree 
damage deep into central Louisiana.” 
We who watch storms closely were, in 
most cases, caught off guard by what was 
deemed “only a Category 2” storm. We had 
many friends and colleagues, and favorite 
birding areas, in the path of this hurricane, 
and it was a dismaying shock to see yet an- 
other catastrophic strike in this region. The 
Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, which defines 
these categories, is not the most refined tool 
for predicting destructiveness. Ike also had 
the highest Integrated Kinetic Energy (IKE) 
of any Atlantic storm on record. IKE, a meas- 
ure of storm surge’s destructive potential, is 
more complex and often more accurate than 
Saffir-Simpson. On an IKE scale that ranges 
from 1 to 6, with 6 being highest destructive 
potential. Hurricane Ike earned a 5.6. The 
storm also had the highest ACE (Accumulat- 
ed Cyclone Energy) factor of any storm in 
2009, a 39; this number is a measure of the 
power of the hurricane multiplied by the 
length of time it exists, and this might also be 
relevant for careful studies of birds in relation 
to tropical cyclones. It may be worthwhile for 
us to look at these numbers as storms ap- 
proach in the future. 
Ike moved into western Arkansas as a weak 
tropical storm during the evening of the 13 th, 
passing over northwestern Arkansas early on 
14 September. As the storm moved inland to- 
ward the northeast, it brought extensive 
flooding and wind damage throughout the 
Midwest and as far north and east as Pennsyl- 
vania. In western Tennessee and Kentucky, 
and up the Ohio River as far as Cincinnati, 
Ohio, heavy winds (up to 80 m.p.h.) downed 
trees by the thousands. Observers patiently 
scanned from key points on the eastern Great 
Lakes (the storm passed directly over Point 
Pelee, Ontario), but not a single storm bird 
was detected north of Oklahoma or Arkansas 
.... unless one considers the frigatebirds. 
Steve Cardiff called Hurricane Ike “a south- 
ern Louisiana ‘frigatebird event’,” but unlike 
in Gustav, no frigatebirds were seen in 
Arkansas during or after Ike at all. Highlights 
of the Ike event began with 20 frigatebirds 
over New Orleans 11 September. The next 
day, birders found over 550 frigatebirds across 
the southern part of the state, with 68+ the 
following day (some of these remaining an- 
other day), and four birds noted in other ar- 
eas 14 September. Inland, Cross Lake still had 
a frigatebird 20 September. In adjacent east- 
ern Texas, dozens of frigatebirds were noted 
in the Pineywoods as far north as Lake 
Tawakoni and west to Lake Waco (ten coun- 
ties; numbers not specified). Although there 
is no way to prove an association with Ike, 
single frigatebirds reported from northeastern 
Ohio 16 September, western Maryland 19 
September, northern Michigan and eastern 
Pennsylvania 20 September, upstate New 
York 21 September (Figure 4), southwestern 
Michigan 26 September, and northern Indi- 
ana 27 September seem very likely to have 
moved with or ahead of the enormous storm 
that was Ike. 
A comparison with a “frigatebird storm” 
from the not-too-distant past, Hurricane 
Gilbert of 1988 (Lehman 1989), may be in- 
structive: Gilbert displaced dozens of frigate- 
birds, with records extending from New Mex- 
ico east to Virginia, north to Minnesota and 
Ontario. Gilbert’s breadth, expressed in what 
meteorologists call “gale diameter,” was the 
third greatest ever recorded at landfall in the 
Atlantic, at 925 kilometers (or 500 miles). 
Hurricane Ike does make the Top Ten list in 
this regard, coming in at #10 with a diameter 
of 780 kilometers (420 miles), but while it 
was still offshore, /fee’s tropical storm and hur- 
ricane force winds were as broad as 965 and 
390 kilometers, respectively — making Ike the 
largest Atlantic hurricane known. The only 
other Gulf storm on the list to make compa- 
rable landfall, Ivan of 2004 (785 kilometers 
wide), was also a frigatebird storm, although 
most birds were displaced east (Florida) and 
west (Louisiana) of the area of landfall in Al- 
abama (Pranty 2005, Duncan and Duncan 
2005; <http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/hurricane/ 
postivanphotos.htm>). So perhaps in our at- 
tempts to understand relationships between 
various seabird species and tropical cyclones, 
VOLUME 63 (2009) • NUMBER 1 
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