The state’s ongoing drought is affecting water levels in the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s North River Wetland Preserve near Otway, where wading birds take advantage of conditions recently to feed on the fish, tadpoles, frogs and aquatic insects left with nowhere to go. Photo: Doug Waters

Two cottonmouths, aka water moccasins and known scientifically as Agkistrodon piscivorus, came face to face while foraging Sunday at the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s 6,000-acre North River Wetlands Preserve, with one rising up and the other backing down. Photo: Doug Waters

A brightly hued eastern bluebird peeks out from a knothole in a tree at the Dare County Arboretum and Teaching Garden in Kill Devil Hills. Male bluebirds tend to draw attention to themselves at their nest cavities in this way to lure potential mates, according to Cornell Lab. Kip Tabb

An American alligator sunning at the 6,000-acre North River Wetlands Preserve in Carteret County. N.C. Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, has been working to return the farmland back to its original state and to use the wetlands to naturally treat polluted runoff. Photo: Doug Waters

A male pileated woodpecker, or Dryocopus pileatus, searches for a snack Sunday in the bark of a pine tree in Nags Head Woods Preserve, one of the largest remaining maritime forests on the East Coast, according to The Nature Conservancy. Photo: Kip Tabb

Marshallberg Harbor is iced in during last weekend’s winter storm. Despite warmer temperatures in the days since, black ice and snow along with refreezing of standing water remain a threat to travel, National Weather Service forecasters in Newport said Thursday. Photo: Rachael Carlyle

Ice covers a patch of volunteer vegetation near Michael J. Smith Field Tuesday after an overnight freeze in Beaufort. Photo: Dylan Ray

The Duncan House at 105 Front St., Beaufort, a structure that dates back to the mid-1700s, is on the National Register of Historic Places and designated as a Statewide Properties of Significance, is cordoned off Tuesday after a blaze consumed the unoccupied building on Monday. Photo: Dylan Ray.

A siege of herons takes refuge Monday from high winds near Russell Creek in Beaufort. Photo: Dylan Ray

A Venus flytrap shows off its perhaps little-appreciated blooms, which are often overlooked, as compared with the other, better-known, insect-trapping attributes of this carnivorous plant. Photo: Mark Hibbs *We will not publish Thursday and Friday in observation of Thanksgiving.

A recent visit to Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge offered little in the way of migratory waterfowl but did yield this glimpse of a whitetail doe through the trees. The refuge, established in 1934, spans some 50,000 acres, including the 40,000-acre Lake Mattamuskeet. Photo: Kip Tabb

A gull keeps watch from atop the North Carolina Department of Transportation Ferry Division’s vehicle ferry Kinnakeet as it plies the Neuse River between Minnesott Beach and Cherry Branch. Photo: Mark Hibbs

Danielle Carey of Holly Ridge recently submitted this image of various shorebirds congregating on a sand bank in the Sneads Ferry area as if time for a shift change.

Barbara Johnson of Morehead City carries a pumpkin Thursday across the grounds of the First Presbyterian Church on Arendell Street during the annual Pumpkin Patch fundraising event that benefits the children and youth ministry program. Photo: Dylan Ray

Fingerstyle guitarist and vocalist Noah Cobb, 18, of Greenville, performs Saturday at the New Village Brewery in Oriental as part of the Pamlico County village’s two-day Ol’ Front Porch Music Festival. Photo: Mark Hibbs

Storm swell associated with Hurricane Imelda breaks Tuesday along the Bogue Banks shore at Oceanana Fishing Pier in Atlantic Beach. Photo: Dylan Ray

Wild horses cross tidal waters from Town Marsh to Bird Shoal along Beaufort’s barrier islands, which are part of the Rachel Carson Reserve, in Carteret County. Photo: Dylan Ray

A male luna moth finds a perch in the branches of a Japanese maple near Russell Creek in Beaufort. The species flies mostly at night and is found statewide this time of year in and near hardwood forests, wooded residential areas and, on barrier islands, in maritime forests. Photo: Dylan Ray

People on Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head watch as waves generated by Hurricane Erin crash into the concrete structure that’s part of the North Carolina Aquariums system. The storm’s center was about 260 miles east of Cape Hatteras at midday Thursday and moving out to sea. Photo: Kip Tabb

NCDOT Ferry Division vehicle ferry Avon prepares to dock at the Minnesott Beach Ferry Terminal in Pamlico County, making one of the service’s daily, 20-minute trips each way, back and forth between here and the Cherry Branch terminal across the Neuse River in Craven County. Photo: Dylan Ray

Fishing lines, sunshades and beachgoers crowd an Emerald Isle beach while two seagulls fly overhead, with another in the foreground searching for food. Photo: Robert Watkins

A wall of sandbags extends along the roadside far into the distance aside NC 12 on the north end of Ocracoke Island. This is where washouts and erosion from storm surge repeatedly chew away at the barrier island, part of the normal ocean dynamics that humans often try to control. Photo: Dylan Ray

Least terns are excellent fish-catchers. Males also catch and display fish during courting, which is what we assumed is going on here. There’s only one problem with that theory: After showing it to the female, when she finally showed interest, he flew away. Photo: William Birkemeier

A mother black bear and three cubs stroll along Creef Cut Wildlife Trail in Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, located on the Albemarle Peninsula in eastern North Carolina. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommends staying at least 1,000 yards away from bears. Photo: Karen Lebing, USFWS

An anole sends out a message to potential mates by flexing his throat to reveal a show of color in a Beaufort garden. Photo: Dylan Ray

A daddy longlegs stretches recently on the leaf of a sweetbay magnolia, a native species on the North Carolina coast. Often called harvestmen and mistakenly identified as spiders, the insect is an arachnid that has been found everywhere on Earth except Antarctica. Photo: Mark Hibbs

Coastal Review will not publish Friday, April 18.

A calf lies in a field of spring flowers near the Haystacks area of Morehead City in Carteret County. Photo: Dylan Ray

A state Department of Transportation crew works high above the Newport River inspecting the underside of the Morehead City-Beaufort high-rise bridge next to the state port. Photo: Dylan Ray

An angler tries his luck beneath the Scuppernong River Bridge on the the Scuppernong River Boardwalk at the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge visitor center in Tyrrell County. Money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was appropriated to replace the boardwalk next year. Photo: Mark Hibbs