Information: - A beach is a landform along a body of water. It usually consists of loose particles, which are often composed of rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, or cobblestones. The particles comprising a beach are occasionally biological in origin, such as mollusc shells or coralline algae. - The piping plover ("Charadrius melodus") is a small sand-colored, sparrow-sized shorebird that nests and feeds along coastal sand and gravel beaches in North America. The adult has yellow-orange legs, a black band across the forehead from eye to eye, and a black stripe running along the breast line. This chest band is usually thicker in males during the breeding season, and it is the only reliable way to tell the sexes apart. The bird is difficult to see when it is standing still, as it blends well with open, sandy beach habitats. It typically runs in short spurts and stops. - The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's oceans with a total area of about . It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earth's surface and about 29 percent of its water surface area. It separates the "Old World" from the "New World". - The herons are the long-legged freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 64 recognised species, some of which are referred to as "egrets" or "bitterns" rather than herons. Members of the genera "Botaurus" and "Ixobrychus" are referred to as "bitterns", and, together with the zigzag heron or zigzag bittern in the monotypic genus "Zebrilus", form a monophyletic group within the Ardeidae. Egrets are not a biologically distinct group from the herons, and tend to be named differently because they are mainly white or have decorative plumes. Although egrets have the same build as herons, they tend to be smaller. Herons, by evolutionary adaptation, have long beaks. - The Outer Banks (OBX) is a string of narrow peninsulas and barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina and a small portion of Virginia, beginning in the southeastern corner of Virginia Beach on the east coast of the United States. They cover most of the North Carolina coastline, separating the Currituck Sound, Albemarle Sound, and Pamlico Sound from the Atlantic Ocean. The Outer Banks are a major tourist destination and are known around the world for their subtropical climate and wide expanse of open beachfront. The Cape Hatteras National Seashore has four campgrounds where visitors may camp. The treacherous seas off the Outer Banks and the large number of shipwrecks that have occurred there have given these seas the nickname Graveyard of the Atlantic, and the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is located in Hatteras Village near the United States Coast Guard facility and Hatteras ferry. - Barrier islands are coastal landforms and a type of dune system that are exceptionally flat or lumpy areas of sand that form by wave and tidal action parallel to the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of anything from a few islands to more than a dozen. They are subject to change during storms and other action, but absorb energy and protect the coastlines and create areas of protected waters where wetlands may flourish. A barrier chain may extend uninterrupted for over a hundred kilometers, excepting the tidal inlets that separate the islands, the longest and widest being Padre Island of Texas. The length and width of barriers and overall morphology of barrier coasts are related to parameters including tidal range, wave energy, sediment supply, sea-level trends, and basement controls. - Albemarle Sound is a large estuary on the coast of North Carolina in the United States located at the confluence of a group of rivers, including the Chowan and Roanoke. It is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Currituck Banks, barrier peninsula upon which the town of Kitty Hawk is located, at the eastern edge of the sound, and part of the greater Outer Banks region. Roanoke Island is situated at the southeastern corner of the sound, where it connects to Pamlico Sound. Much of the water in the Albemarle Sound is brackish or fresh, as opposed to the saltwater of the ocean, as a result of river water pouring into the sound. - Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines. The seven extant species of sea turtles are: the green, loggerhead, Kemp's ridley, olive ridley, hawksbill, flatback, and leatherback. - Anseriformes is an order of birds that comprises about 180 living species in three families: Anhimidae (the screamers), Anseranatidae (the magpie goose), and Anatidae, the largest family, which includes over 170 species of waterfowl, among them the ducks, geese, and swans. In fact, these living species are all included in Anatidae except for the three screamers and the magpie goose. All species in the order are highly adapted for an aquatic existence at the water surface. The males, except for the screamers, also have a penis, a trait that has disappeared in Neoaves. All are web-footed for efficient swimming (although some have subsequently become mainly terrestrial). - Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles. It is defined by size, being finer than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of soil or soil type; i.e. a soil containing more than 85% sand-sized particles by mass. - Cape Hatteras National Seashore is a United States national seashore which preserves the portion of the Outer Banks of North Carolina from Bodie Island to Ocracoke Island, stretching over , and is managed by the National Park Service. Included within this section of barrier islands along N.C. 12, but outside the national seashore boundaries, are Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge and several communities, such as Rodanthe, Buxton, and Ocracoke. Cape Hatteras is a combination of natural and cultural resources, and provides a wide variety of recreational opportunities. - The Anatidae are the biological family of birds that includes ducks, geese, and swans. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on all the world's continents. These birds are adapted for swimming, floating on the water surface, and in some cases diving in at least shallow water. The family contains around 146 species in 40 genera. (The magpie goose is no longer considered to be part of the Anatidae, but is placed in its own family Anseranatidae.) - Currituck / krtk / National Wildlife Refuge , located on the northern end of North Carolina 's Outer Banks , was established in 1984 to preserve and protect the coastal barrier island ecosystem . Refuge lands are managed to provide wintering habitat for waterfowl and to protect endangered species such as piping plover , sea turtles , and seabeach amaranth . Habitat types common to most barrier islands are found on the refuge . Moving westward from the Atlantic Ocean to Currituck Sound , these habitats include sandy beaches , grassy dunes , interdunal wetlands ( flats ) , maritime forests and shrub thickets . Currituck Sound 's shoreline is made up of brackish water marshes and occasionally , mudflats that have been exposed by wind tides . A few forested islands also exist on the refuge . Monkey Island , a noted bird rookery , provides nesting habitat to several species of wading birds . It is also currently the most northerly known native habitat of the Sabal minor palm . In addition to Sabal palms , vegetation within these diverse habitat types include several varieties of beach grasses , live oak , loblolly pine , wax myrtle , cattails , sedges and rushes , black needlerush ( Juncus roemerianus ) and giant cordgrass ( Spartina cynosuroides ) . Various types of wading birds , shorebirds , waterfowl , raptors , mammals ( including feral horses ) , reptiles , and amphibians common to the eastern United States , are found on the refuge . The endangered piping plover and loggerhead sea turtle sometimes nest on refuge beaches and dunes . The refuge has a surface area of 8,316 acres ( 33.65 km2 ) . - Pamlico Sound in North Carolina in the US is the largest lagoon along the North American East Coast, extending long and 24 to 48km (15 to 20 miles) wide. It is part of a large, interconnected network of lagoon estuaries that includes Albemarle Sound, Currituck Sound, Croatan Sound, Pamlico Sound, Bogue Sound, Core Sound, and Roanoke Sound. Together, these sounds, known as the Albemarle-Pamlico sound system, comprise the second largest estuary in the United States, covering over 3,000 sq. mi. of open water.(Chesapeake Bay is the largest.) The Pamlico Sound is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Outer Banks, a row of low, sandy barrier islands that include Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Cape Lookout National Seashore, and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. The Albemarle-Pamlico Sound is one of nineteen great waters recognized by the America's Great Waters Coalition. - Tennessee ("Tanasi") is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th largest and the 16th most populous of the 50 United States. Tennessee is bordered by Kentucky and Virginia to the north, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, and Arkansas and Missouri to the west. The Appalachian Mountains dominate the eastern part of the state, and the Mississippi River forms the state's western border. Tennessee's capital and second largest city is Nashville, which has a population of 654,610. Memphis is the state's largest city, with a population of 655,770. - Waders are birds commonly found along shorelines and mudflats that wade in order to forage for food (such as insects or crustaceans) in the mud or sand. They are called shorebirds in North America (where "wader" is used to refer to long-legged wading birds such as storks and herons). Waders are members of the order Charadriiformes, which includes gulls, auks and their allies. - Fowl are birds belonging to one of two biological orders, namely the gamefowl or landfowl (Galliformes) and the waterfowl (Anseriformes). Studies of anatomical and molecular similarities suggest these two groups are close evolutionary relatives; together, they form the fowl clade which is scientifically known as Galloanserae (initially termed Galloanseri). This clade is also supported by morphological and DNA sequence data as well as retrotransposon presence/absence data. - Graveyard of the Atlantic is a nickname of two locations known for numerous shipwrecks: the treacherous waters in the Atlantic Ocean from the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay at Cape Henry south along the coastline to the Outer Banks of Virginia and North Carolina; and around Sable Island, off the coast of central Nova Scotia. Both these hot spots for shipwrecks are due to some of the same reasons. When the arctic Labrador Current and the Gulf stream meet, it causes very rough waters. In some cases, it also causes thick fog which increases danger, especially near Sable Island. The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum, located in Hatteras Village, focuses on the history of this area and features many artifacts recovered from area shipwrecks. - Albatrosses, of the biological family Diomedeidae, are large seabirds allied to the procellariids, storm petrels and diving petrels in the order Procellariiformes (the tubenoses). They range widely in the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific. They are absent from the North Atlantic, although fossil remains show they once occurred there and occasional vagrants are found. Albatrosses are among the largest of flying birds, and the great albatrosses (genus "Diomedea") have the largest wingspans of any extant birds, reaching up to . The albatrosses are usually regarded as falling into four genera, but there is disagreement over the number of species. - North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. - The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's seven uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the U.S. military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission (with jurisdiction in both domestic and international waters) and a federal regulatory agency mission as part of its mission set. It operates under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during peacetime, and can be transferred to the U.S. Department of the Navy by the U.S. President at any time, or by the U.S. Congress during times of war. This has happened twice, in 1917, during World War I, and in 1941, during World War II. - Swans are birds of the family Anatidae within the genus Cygnus. The swans' close relatives include the geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometimes, they are considered a distinct subfamily, Cygninae. There are six or seven species of swan in the genus "Cygnus"; in addition there is another species known as the coscoroba swan, although this species is no longer considered one of the true swans. Swans usually mate for life, though "divorce" does sometimes occur, particularly following nesting failure, and if a mate dies, the remaining swan will take up with another. The number of eggs in each clutch ranges from three to eight. - A shipwreck is the remains of a ship that has wrecked, which are found either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be deliberate or accidental. UNESCO estimates that worldwide over 3 million shipwrecks, some thousands of years old, lie on seabeds. - Sparrows are a family of small passerine birds, Passeridae. They are also known as true sparrows, or Old World sparrows, names also used for a particular genus of the family, "Passer". They are distinct from both the American sparrows, in the family Emberizidae, and from a few other birds sharing their name, such as the Java sparrow of the family Estrildidae. Many species nest on buildings, and the house and Eurasian tree sparrows in particular inhabit cities in large numbers, so sparrows are among the most familiar of all wild birds. They are primarily seed-eaters, though they also consume small insects. Some species scavenge for food around cities and, like gulls or rock doves, will happily eat virtually anything in small quantities. - North Carolina is a state in the southeastern region of the United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west, Virginia to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. North Carolina is the 28th most extensive and the 9th most populous of the U.S. states. The state is divided into 100 counties. The capital is Raleigh. The most populous municipality is Charlotte, and it is the second largest banking center in the United States after New York City. - The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over a land area of just , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. A global power city, New York City exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment, its fast pace defining the term "New York minute". Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. - The tidal range is the vertical difference between the high tide and the succeeding low tide. Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun and the rotation of the Earth. The tidal range is not constant, but changes depending on where the sun and the moon are. - Duck is the common name for a large number of species in the waterfowl family Anatidae, which also includes swans and geese. The ducks are divided among several subfamilies in the family Anatidae; they do not represent a monophyletic group (the group of all descendants of a single common ancestral species) but a form taxon, since swans and geese are not considered ducks. Ducks are mostly aquatic birds, mostly smaller than the swans and geese, and may be found in both fresh water and sea water. - Gulls, often referred to as seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns (family Sternidae) and only distantly related to auks, skimmers, and more distantly to the waders. Until the 21st century, most gulls were placed in the genus "Larus", but this arrangement is now known to be polyphyletic, leading to the resurrection of several genera. An older name for gulls is mew, cognate with German "Mowe", Danish "mage", Dutch "meeuw", and French "mouette"; this term can still be found in certain regional dialects. - Waterfowl are certain wildfowl of the order Anseriformes, especially members of the family Anatidae, which includes ducks, geese, and swans. Some definitions of the term 'waterfowl' include the saltwater shorebirds or waders, gulls, pelicans, and herons, as well as seabirds such as the albatross, but 'fowl' especially refers to birds used by humans for game. They have historically been an important food source, and continue to be hunted as game, or raised as poultry for meat and eggs and are sometimes kept as pets. - Currituck Sound is a protected inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, located in northeastern part of North Carolina and extreme southeastern Virginia. Thirty miles N-S and 38 miles wide, this shallow, island-filled sound is separated from the ocean by the Currituck Banks Peninsula (formerly Bodie Island), part of the Outer Banks. On the NE, it extends to Back Bay in Virginia Beach, Virginia. A fork on the northwest leads to the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, which is a part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway that connects the sound to Hampton Roads and the Chesapeake Bay. Although several inlets connected it directly to the Atlantic at one time or another, they have all since closed and there is now no direct access to the Ocean from the Sound. This has caused the salinity levels to be significantly lower than they had been historically. Currently, the only access to the Ocean is through the Albemarle Sound, which joins the Currituck to the South. Currituck County's Mackay Island and Currituck National Wildlife Refuge as well as Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge and False Cape State Park in Virginia Beach border the sound and are winter habitats on the Atlantic Flyway. Many watersports activities occur in the sound, including parasailing, sea kayaking, and jet skiing. An area of barrier beaches, it is also noted for its duck and goose hunting. - South Carolina is a state in the southeastern region of the United States. The state is bordered to the north by North Carolina, to the south and west by Georgia across the Savannah River, and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. - Padre Island is the largest of the Texas barrier islands and is the world's longest barrier island. It is part of the U.S. state of Texas. The island is located along Texas' southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico and is noted for its white sandy beaches at the south end. Meaning "father" in Spanish, it was named after Father Jose Nicolas Balli (c.1770-1829), who owned the island and served as a missionary priest and collector of finances for all the churches in the Rio Grande Valley. He also founded the first mission in present-day Cameron County. - Cape Hatteras is a cape on the coast of North Carolina, and is protected as the namesake feature of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. It is the point that protrudes the farthest to the southeast along the northeast-to-southwest line of the Atlantic coast of North America. - Pelicans are a genus of large water birds that makes up the family Pelecanidae. They are characterised by a long beak and a large throat pouch used for catching prey and draining water from the scooped up contents before swallowing. They have predominantly pale plumage, the exceptions being the brown and Peruvian pelicans. The bills, pouches and bare facial skin of all species become brightly coloured before the breeding season. The eight living pelican species have a patchy global distribution, ranging latitudinally from the tropics to the temperate zone, though they are absent from interior South America as well as from polar regions and the open ocean. - Virginia (, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia) is a state located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, as well as in the historic Southeast. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" due to its status as the first colonial possession established in mainland British America, and "Mother of Presidents" because eight U.S. presidents were born there, more than any other state. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most populous city, and Fairfax County is the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's estimated population is over 8.3 million, which is slightly less than New York City. - Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for the eggs they produce, their meat, their feathers, or sometimes as pets. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quails and turkeys) and the family Anatidae, in order Anseriformes, commonly known as "waterfowl" and including domestic ducks and domestic geese. Poultry also includes other birds that are killed for their meat, such as the young of pigeons (known as squabs) but does not include similar wild birds hunted for sport or food and known as game. The word "poultry" comes from the French/Norman word "poule", itself derived from the Latin word "pullus", which means small animal. After reading the paragraphs above, we are interested in knowing the entity with which 'currituck national wildlife refuge' exhibits the relationship of 'located in the administrative territorial entity'. Find the answer from the choices below. Choices: - alabama - atlantic ocean - banks - buxton - cameron county - caribbean - center - charlotte - commerce - currituck county - earth - east - freshwater - georgia - java - kentucky - mainland - mexico - mission - mississippi - most - nashville - new york - norman - north america - north carolina - northern - of - orange - pacific ocean - pale - raleigh - rise - river - rock - south - tennessee - texas - virginia - york
currituck county