Three more from Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, and then it was back to the hotel, which will close out day 2. 

First up, was the first thing we saw as we got out of the car at the visitor's center...

And omnipresent along all the trails are...

And one of the most common types of birds are gulls.  That is to be expected.  I made no real effort to photograph them, but took a shot of this...

And for now that ends my pics of Pea Island.  Which leads to the road back to the hotel, with a short side trip to the...

Okay, I promised to end at the hotel, and I will.  With one most awesome Lockheed HC-130 search and rescue plane doing a fly by with the rear cargo door open along the beach.

Our second day there was really amazing.  Other than my fail at photography.  Yes, on a family vacation I have other things to do than sit for 40 minutes to get a single shot of a bird, but I really was off my game.  I reviewed my camera setting on pictures that I thought I had got and they were fine, yet most are unusable. 

And by not being there with either permission or permits to go off-trali, I couldn't get very close to the good birds, so what I do have are shots of birds far away and just not enough time or lens length to capture what I could see would be good shots.

That said, Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge is well worth a visit!  If you are a birder, with binoculars and/or a scope, you will see quite a lot of good birds.  The middle of summer is not best, but what a nice place to bird.  If you are a photographer, bring a BIG lens, as there are not many trails and they don't go real close to the best spots for the birds.

So, how about an American Avocet.  This bird is not just quite pretty, but has the interesting bit that its bill turns upward at the end instead of straight or downward like most birds.  This is reflected in its Latin name, Recurvirostra americana (roughly translated from Latin as the "bent backwards beak").

And there were some red-wing blackbirds around

But wait, do you want to swim here?  Something like six shark attacks in the last six weeks...

The Outer Banks are a series of mostly linear offshore barrier islands and a sort of sand bar that protects much of North Carolina from the effects of hurricanes, while taking the brunt of them.

They have become a huge tourist draw, and well, my family wanted to see what it was all about.  Following will be a bit of what we saw and experienced.

First up, this area can be accessed during a day's drive from much of the east coast, as it is pretty centrally located.  You leave in the morning and arrive around dinner.  And if you are staying near Kitty hawk, a good stop for dinner is the Slice Pizzeria.

And don't be put off by the big line that sometimes forms.  They make pizzas at a rate second to none.  One of the guys in front of us in line ordered 12 pizzas, and we still got ours in a reasonable time.  Limited indoor and outdoor seating, as they do a lot of take out but also do dine-in.  By the slice or by the pie.

So, you finish dinner, and have a bit of time to hit the beach.  For our trip there was an upwelling of cold water, temps in the low 60's, but still could play in the water as the air temps were so high.

But how about a way to play without much getting wet!  The surf was 2-3 feet, and this guy had figured out a way to wakeboard from shore and surf the beach break back.  Never getting wet over the knees, but he was good.

And don't forget to just go fishing.

And just one more for tonight.  The sunset was not best from our angle, but some dune grasses and lit sky were worth a shot.

More the next couple of days, as I go over the Outer banks pics.

There are a lot of cicadas out there.  Here is one from the island of Borneo, Malaysia. 

My good friend Al Grimm is stuck in a side passage of Butler Cave.  And don't worry, our caving partner Scott Olson pulled him out just after I got this photo.  Original pic was taken in 2008.

Put up the wrong pic last night.  Here is the correct shot.

One of the flying foxes, from Zambia. This is Wahlberg's epauletted fruit bat (Epomophorus wahlbergi)

Yesterday I got rained out trying to get a pic.  Similar bit today. So let's go way back and here is a photo of Barbara am Ende from 15 years ago.