Pea Island NWR
Its hard to compete with birding spots down in Florida, but up here in North Carolina, Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge is about as good as gets right now. The area is typically known for its migratory birds when geese, swans, and ducks blacken the sky as they stop over here (its smack dab in the middle of the Atlantic Flyway and all the birds stop in for the dune peas - hence the name pea island) in the fall. But right now the wading and shore birds are prolific. Everything from black necked stilts to black skimmers and black crowned night herons have been frequenting the Kuralt trail in between New Feild and North Pond.
The real show however has been at the obersvation tower at the end of the trail. The platform is situated in the middle of a natural coridor that funnels the birds through as they travel up and down the the island. This is an amazing spot for BIF photos as the birds are whizzing by anywhere between 10 feet to 40 yards away from your lens. The elevation of the tower and the marsh to the west make for some absolutely stunning BIF shots.
From shooting out there for the last 5 days what Ive seen is that in the morning the birds are coming by individually and sometimes in pairs. In the evening however the white ibis, snowys, tri-coloreds, and great egrets are traveling in flocks of up to 30 - right past the tower. In the morning, the action is from sunrise to around 9am. In the evening its 530 to sunset.
Just to the west of the tower in the marsh there are a couple of very very small ponds - one of which is probably only 15 ft long. These ponds have been so full of birds by first light that there is hardly any room for them to fish and they are pretty much fighting constantly in them.
In the north eastern corner of New Field there have been 5 black necked stilts hanging out religously. Quite a few greater yellow legs wander around that area speckled with the occasional avacet.
Rabbits and bunnies are everywhere along the trail leading to the tower and some will let you walk right past them. Muskrats come up onto the trail around sunset.
There is a family of otter (4 of them to be exact) hanging out along the trail as well and I have photographed them several times over the last few days.
As for deer, there are 2 femals that I have seen every evening that come down the service road along the backside of New Feild towards the tower. There is a nice little buck thats covered in velvet that makes his way from pamlico sound through the marsh and crosses over the service road directly infront of the tower and works his way along the north edge of the impoundment. I did see a little spike yesterday who was remarkably relaxed around people. The other deer spook quickly when people walk down the trail to the tower but this little guy would just look up for a few seconds and go right back to eating along the waters edge.
Great thing about this place is that the same area is bombarded by birds of prey in the fall as they migrate through and those that follow the geese and ducks. Perigrines, balds, norther harriers, etc. . .
I hope this helps out if anyone is planning on being in the area.
I will post a couple of photos once i have a chance to sort through the 20 gigs of images I took.
Jared
www.JaredLloydphoto.com
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Originally Posted by Jared Lloyd
