Honeymoon on Cobb Island

Dr. Olin Sewall Pettingill, Jr., of Wayne, Maine, is Director of Development, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York, and President of the Maine Audubon Society. From 1936 to 1953 he was a member of the faculty of Carleton College, Minnesota, where he taught ornithology and other courses in zoology. For more than twenty-two summers he taught ornithology at the University of Michigan Biological Station in northern Michigan. Dr. Pettingill was born in Maine and was graduated from Bowdoin College. He received his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Cornell University. As a zoologist and photographer, he has made expeditions to Mexico, Iceland, Hudson Bay, and the Falkland Islands. Some of his nature films have been used by Walt Disney productions and shown and narrated by Dr. Pettingill on his Audubon Screen Tour lectures for the National Audubon Society. He is the author of A Laboratory and Field Manual of Ornithology and a two volume work, A Guide to Bird Finding [in the United States]. He has also been President of the Wilson Ornithological Society, and Secretary, American Ornithologists' Union.

Late in the afternoon of June 22, 1933, my bride and I boarded a dilapidated fishing smack at Oyster, Virginia, and headed east across the shallow Broadwater toward Cobb Island, a long, low barrier of dunes on the Oceanside of Cape Charles. The one-lunger pounded strenuously, rattling the craft from stem to stern and making conversation virtually impossible. Camping equipment and cameras shimmied underfoot. In the distance a thin yellow line appeared on the horizon.

From gestures and bellowed phrases, my wife, Eleanor, and I learned that the line was "Cobb Island . . . 8 miles away . . . Coast Guard Station on it . . . couldn't land there without permission . . . would pull in at Captain Cobb's . . . queer old duck . . . owned the island . . . lived alone."

Instead of relaxing in the soft, warm Virginia evening, I was plagued by the question: Would we be allowed to land, camp, and study birds as we had planned? In the rush of events before starting on our honeymoon, I had neglected to communicate with anyone about Cobb Island. I simply knew that it was an exceedingly attractive spot for marine and coastal birds.

My growing concern was momentarily diverted by eight long-winged birds flying parallel to starboard. Striking creatures they were, jet black above and immaculate white below. As they maneuvered liltingly just above the waves, their bodies jerked up and down by strong wing strokes, I could make out their vermilion beaks with the knifelike lower mandibles protruding grotesquely. My first black skimmers! Of all the birds nesting on Cobb Island, they were the ones I wanted most to photograph.

Slowly the island assumed definite character. Near the southern extremity loomed some buildings. Built high on piles so as to escape the tide, they seemed lifted above the island like a mirage. Golden sunlight reflected from their windows. We soon passed the United States Coast Guard Station and approached a frame house flanked by two small bungalows.

It was then that I caught sight of a man standing squarely on both feet, hands on his hips, and motionless. He wore a blue shirt, khaki trousers, and hip boots; his head, though bald, was dignified by a corona of white hair.

As the boatman eased his craft toward the landing and killed the motor, I called, "Are you Captain Cobb?" No reply. We jumped out. The man still did not move or speak. Somewhat unnerved by now, I extended my and, "My name is Pettingill."

"I'm George Cobb, glad to meet you," was the response in a low, pleasant voice. We shook hands, and he nodded graciously to Eleanor. Captain Cobb was the warden posted here by the National Audubon Society, or National Association of Audubon Societies as it was called then.

I was impressed with Captain Cobb's massive build and erect, noticeably stiff posture. Though his tanned face had the deep furrows of a man of sixty, his physique possessed the vigor of one many years younger. His expression, not unkindly, remained immobile and serious.

"We'd like to stay awhile," I began cautiously, "to camp and study birds."

At this his face brightened, and I sensed a sudden unbending.

"Do as you wish," he said warmly. "Anyone who likes birds is welcome. Lots of people come to see them."

Much relieved, we unloaded our duffel. The boatman poled his craft from the shore. He and Captain Cobb, I realized, had not exchanged a word or glance.

Still not having taken a step, Captain Cobb said, "You'd better not camp tonight, it's nearly dark."

His words were persuasive, for night was settling down, but the yellow glow in the west still gave some light.

"The upstairs rooms in my house are empty," he continued.

Uneasy lest I hurt his feelings, I tried to explain. "We want to camp -- something we've never done together." Had we not wished to appear seasoned to the rigors of the outdoors, I might have told him that my wife had never camped in her life.

"Do as you like," he said. "There's a flat place over there between two dunes where you can pitch your tent. Come with me."

From our campsite on the southern tip of the island, we could see the eastern beach rising to the dunes and the marsh stretching westward. Captain Cobb's house was just north of us on piles overlooking the marsh. A wooden ramp extended from his porch to the dunes. The Coast Guard Station was a quarter of a mile away.

In the semidarkness we set up our tent. Meanwhile Captain Cobb disappeared and returned shortly with a pail and some pieces of iron pipe.

"Drinking water," he said. "My well filled with salt water during the last storm. Caught this from the roof. It's good."

Just as I thanked him, a breeze rushed by, collapsing the tent.

"Try these for staples," Captain Cobb said, handing me the pipes. "Yours never'll hold in the sand." In no time the tent was up for keeps.

"Sorry we can't offer you a chair," I said, "but how about a cigarette?"

"Never smoke or drink," he replied.

After our uneasy silence, he said, "You want to see birds?"

We learned that we were just in time. The eggs in the skimmer colony on the beach were hatching; there were many nests of gulls and terns in the marsh.

It was dark when Captain Cobb left. The island was soothingly quiet. Above the light rush of surf on the beach, we heard a few skimmers passing close to shore, their calls suggesting the yelps of beagles in pursuit of unseen prey.

Next morning, as we approached the skimmer colony on the beach, the birds sat peacefully on their nests, all facing into the wind like weather vanes. Even when we were within a few yards of them, they failed to move. But suddenly we passed their limit of tolerance, because into the air they went with a rush of wings and discordant cries. The next moment one resentful bird left the throng and flew toward Eleanor. She screamed, folded her hands over her head, and crumpled in the sand.

"They won't hit you," I assured her; "they're bluffing." Just then another skimmer shot toward me at eye level. Not believing my own words, I ducked. The bird veered sharply upward.

Many birds were soon doing the same thing -- shooting downward, veering upward, but never striking. Still confident, but not sure that they would not strike, I walked boldly into the colony, followed by my reluctant bride, whereupon some of the skimmers dropped to the ground in seemingly helpless prostration. One rested on its belly with wings limply out-
stretched; another lay on its side with one wing waving in the air; still another flopped along using its wings as paddles. They were "injury feigning," I explained. Frankly I was surprised to see it in colony-nesting birds.

Nests -- mere cups scratched in the sand -- were everywhere, often within 2 or 3 feet of one another. Many contained white eggs boldly splotched with black and brown. In a few nests there were chicks, the color of sand, squatting tightly, their eyes closed.

The sun bore down on us; the sand was painful to touch. Realizing that the eggs and chicks could not long endure exposure to such intense heat, we quickly departed, letting the panic-stricken skimmers return to shade their eggs or young ones from the burning sun.

That evening Captain Cobb invited us to dinner. When we strolled up the ramp to his house, there were lights in the Coast Guard Station. The air was calm, and from the still unexplored marsh came a medley of bird sounds.

Captain Cobb, fork in one hand and holder in the other, greeted us at the door and motioned us into a large unfinished room -- kitchen, dining room, and living room in one -- plainly furnished but tidy. After being assured that we had come with appetites, he returned to his oil stove, where oysters sizzled in a pan. In the nearby sink, silvery hogfishes and huge blue crabs still waited his attention. This was to be a very special meal, of the best the sea could proved -- and it was.

After dinner Captain Cobb became voluble, revealing his attitudes and philosophies and, withal, an unexpected sense of humor. Time meant nothing to him. His only timepiece lay somewhere in the marsh were he had flung it in disgust three weeks before. The sun was his clock, he said. Companionship meant little either. He was contemptuous of his only neigh-
bors, the crew at the Coast Guard Station, whom he considered lazy and careless. He hated to think of a ship in distress calling on them for help and pointed to a bullet hole in his wall made during their "target practice." He like most of the people who came to see the birds, though the women in "trousers" were comical. Of the social life enjoyed by his wife on the mainland, a few days a year was all he could bear. What he wanted, he told us, was to stay on his island every day for the rest of his life.

Cobb Island was his home, settled by his grandfather, Nathan Cobb, when it was longer and wider with rich topsoil and many trees and shrubs. It teemed with birds. The family farm grew "cabbages as big as bushel baskets" and turnips "the size of watermelons." Artesian wells supplied water. A hotel accommodated pothunters and sportsmen.

Toward the end of the last century disaster struck: The pothunters all but exterminated the birds and a great storm, accompanied by high tides, destroyed the buildings, filled the wells, uprooted the trees, and washed away the life-giving soil and a third of the island. The family moved to the mainland.

Captain Cobb, a stubborn man, returned and built the present house. Now he was renovating the two bungalows for people coming the see birds. As for the birds, most of the breeding species had recovered from the pothunters. His present struggle was against the mainlanders who came to steal the beach birds' eggs for food. They hated him, even shot at him, but the National Association of Audubon Societies had appointed him Deputy Warden with authority to enforce bird protection on his and a neighboring island, and that he was determined to do even if he had to shoot in return.

The next day Eleanor and I explored the marsh. She turned up her nose at the musky odors, became tangled in the waist-
high grass, jumped out of the way of the scurrying fiddler crabs and into a pool of black, sticky mud which smeared her new slacks and sneakers. Although she expressed doubts that any bird could nest in such a place, she followed me gamely.

Overhead a few laughing gulls circled placidly, and from the grass came the sharp cackles of clapper rails. Moving gingerly lest we step into some unseen hole, we finally reached a place where a gull cried out in alarm. Immediately dozens of gulls, together with several Forster's terns, flushed from the vegetation and milled over our heads. Occasionally one dived at us, but its attack was so half hearted that we ignored it.

The nests of the gulls and terns were clustered here and there on clumps of debris -- dead sedge stalks, seaweeds, and driftwood washed in by excessively high tides. In each nest on the top of the debris were eggs, usually three. Several were pipped; there would soon be chicks.

The clapper rails we did not see, for they cleverly managed to keep behind a wall of vegetation. Their nests, however, we found easily, for the grasses over them were pulled together and entwined at their tips in a telltale knot. Some of these nests contained as many as fifteen eggs.

In the ensuing eight days I divided my time between the beach and the marsh, using blinds so that I might observe the birds without their showing fear. Many of the eggs hatched. The weather was perfect, nearly always sunny with a slight breeze. Nights were balmy, moonlit, and delightful. Using information and ideas gathered on these days, I was able later, to write and publish my observations in two scientific papers in an ornithological journal.

Early on the morning of July 3, I awoke with the tent slapping against my face. Struggling through the opening, I discovered a guy rope loose. After tightening it, I looked about.
Over head from the northeast sped low, thick clouds, blotting out the rising sun already dimmed by an upper stratum of haze. Dark chasms furrowed the ocean's gray surface. The marsh bore a weird olive color, the beach an intense yellow. My deeply tanned hands and arms were sickly amber.

As I stood, pajama-clad, in the wind, I called sharply to Eleanor. At that moment, with a fresh burst of wind, another guy rope gave way, and Eleanor's sleepy, bewildered face peered out of the tent.

"Get dressed and get out," I shouted, struggling with the ropes. Her head snapped back into the tent like a turtle's.

No doubt Captain Cobb had been watching since dawn, had seen me emerge, and later had watched Eleanor, fully dressed, assume the role of detached guy rope while I had my turn inside. We were glad to see him coming down the ramp, his pace slow, reassuring.

"Better take down you tent and move your gear to my porch," he advised. "There'll be a high tide out of this. Have breakfast with me."

Minute by minute the wind increased; each gust seemed stronger than the one before. The tent blew down. There was no argument. With the wind tearing at us, we rolled up the tent and carried our duffel up the narrow ramp to the house. More than once we were thrown off balance and against the railing, which saved us from a tumble into the marsh.

The tide, which, according to Captain Cobb's battered almanac, was due to be high at eleven, reached its normal high soon after we were safely in the house. But what time was that? No one knew. Our watches had run down, and there was no sun. Captain Cobb "guessed" eight o'clock. There would be three more hours of rising tide!

As the tide exceeded its normal mark, the ocean seemed to lift up. Great walls of surf rose above the beach, hesitated
menacingly, then collapsed in thunderous roars, sending avalanches of white water against the protecting dunes. The swelling tide rushed and swirled into the Broadwater. Small ponds appeared in the marsh; the ponds became lakes; the lakes fused into one vast expanse continuous with the Broadwater. Soon the Broadwater crept up to the dunes and under the house. Waves, whipped by the wind, licked at the piles, higher and steadily higher. The ocean sent long tongues of water between the dunes. Our once cozy campsite became a channel. The ramp drifted away. The Coast Guard Station, its piles invisible, seemed afloat. From the boat at the Station dock came exhaust fumes indicating that the crew was ready for any emergency.

The plight of the beach-nesting birds was all too apparent. Above the beach a cloud of skimmers hovered momentarily, settled on the sand, hovered again, settled again. Each time they rose, we knew that a wave had swept over their nests, destroying both eggs and young. Above the marsh, now totally flooded, families of clapper rails drifted on the water at the mercy of the gale. Weak swimmers, they floundered helplessly. Parent birds attempted to round up scattered broods by cutting wide circles and giving frantic calls that we could hear above the roar of the storm. One by one the chicks, exhausted, heavily soaked, and already submerged to their heads, were swallowed up by the waves and tidal whirls.

The heaps of debris on which the laughing gulls nested now floated like small rafts, often with nests intact and still holding eggs or chicks. While the adult gulls flurred anxiously over them, sometimes attempting to alight, the wind forced the rafts steadily southward away from the island and into the open Broadwater. There mounting waves tore them apart, spilling their living cargo into the sea.

Our dismay over the fate of the birds was distracted by a muffled crash. A bungalow dropped on its side; water entered
the other. Moments later the waves began slapping the floor of our house. Captain Cobb still showed neither emotion nor alarm. The collapse of the bungalow, the destruction of the colonies, even the floor boards darkened by rising water, evoked no comment from him.

I was, I remember, looking through a window on the oceanside and watching the spindrift whipped from the towering waves, when I realized that the surf was breaking over the grass-tufted tops of the highest dunes -- our one remaining barrier against the fury of the sea. Suddenly an enormous wave, its force fortunately eased by the dunes, struck the side of the hose at floor level, jarring the structure and spraying the windows.

Eleanor gasped. We turned toward Captain Cobb. Instead of the expected evidence of disturbance, I saw one of his rare smiles.

"Tide's turned," he said, pointing to the water flowing eastward out of the Broadwater.

The following morning Cobb Island sparkled under a sunny sky. Gone, however, were the bird colonies. Nature in one great sweep had rubbed out that which she so generously fostered. The beach where the skimmer colony had been was as smooth and hard as a floor, without sign of eggs or chicks. Beyond the site of the colony several hundred skimmers huddled close together. When we approached, they rose in a body and silently alighted farther away. Nowhere in the marsh was there a gull. We heard a few clapper rails and marveled that they had survived.

"Sorry you must go," Captain Cobb said, as we packed that night. "Come back next year. There'll be more birds than ever."

In August of that year, when another devastating storm bat-
tered the Atlantic Coast, we thought of Captain Cobb and wondered how he had fared. Weeks later in Bird-Lore, the journal of the National Association of Audubon Societies, we were shocked and saddened to read:

George W. Cobb, this Association's warden on Cobb's Island Virginia, lost his life, on August 23, in the severe storm that lashed the middle Atlantic coast. The meager information received may be all that we will ever learn concerning the fate of this sturdy Virginian of well-known pioneer stock, who thus ended his lonely vigils on the wind-swept, wave-battered stretch of dune and marsh which was his ancestral home. Search by airplane and boat has failed, as yet, to reveal his body which, no doubt, rests somewhere among the extensive marshes of the Virginian shore. The storm which took Mr. Cobb's life, we are informed, completely demolished the few buildings on the island, leaving nothing but the drill pole of the United States Coast Guard Station.