North Carolina county #2 Lumber River State Park - Chalk Banks entrance
Yesterday I did an all day trip to Scotland and Robeson counties. In order to meet my goal, I am going to need to cover 2 counties per day trip, especially when they are this distance from me (~2 hours). I’ll break the posts up by county though, so I can easily reference where I went by county later.
In this case, both trips were to Lumber River State Park. For Scotland County, I went to the Chalk Banks entrance. This area has a 3 mile trail which runs by the Lumber River and into the woods a bit near a stream. The river sometimes looks more like a swamp. It had its own type of beauty and I enjoyed the walk.
I got there about 8:45am and it was very quiet. I started to hear some bird activity near the river and ended up with an OK list for this time of year. I am always happy to get a look at a Pileated Woodpecker and I was able to get a recording of it for ebird.
The highlight of the trip for me was when a large group of White-breasted Nuthatches showed up. It was quiet and then I heard them coming – they made quite a racket. They seemed to swarm the trees near me and I managed to count 5 of them – although I may have missed some. Then they moved on. I never saw a group of them travel together like that before.
Overall, a great way to spend the morning.
ebird checklist