Hurricane Earl with its 120 mile-per-hour winds on Monday was ripping through the Caribbean, where a hurricane warning was posted for Virgin Islands National Park on the island of St. John.

A diminutive shorebird and a string of villages both dependent on the same necklace of barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina are being pinched in a precarious setting that demonstrates the folly of trying to control nature.

There are some great, kid-friendly programs on tap in the coming weeks at Assateague Island National Seashore. You can join a walk through the wetlands or watch the critters get fed at the park's aquarium.

In the world of bird hierarchy, crows are considered one of the most intelligent birds out there. And it's this intelligence that has Cape Cod National Seashore officials considering a plan to kill some of the smartest crows on the cape with hopes of bolstering populations of piping plovers, a diminutive bird that, while perhaps not as brainy as crows, could face extinction if its numbers don't increase.