North Carolina county #13 Dismal Swamp State Park
On Monday, the plan was to wake up very early and stop at three counties on the way home. I planned the locations carefully and the first stop was Dismal Swamp State Park (the other two stops turned out to be a bust – you can read about them in the next posts).
This state park covers a large part of the Great Dismal Swamp in Camden County. It is very large at over 14,000 acres but is only a small part of the entire swamp which extends well into Virginia. The entrance is unique in that there is a stream that has to be crossed, and the bridge does not permanently extend over it. Instead, when the park opens, a State Park employee operates the bridge to move a floating platform in place for the two drawbridge parts to connect to, forming a complete bridge. I was there for the opening at 8 am and got to watch this process. I walked a 2 mile trail while I was there, but there was many more miles of trails to be explored, and it is worth further exploration in my opinion. It appeared to have fairly diverse terrains to visit.
This is also a boardwalk behind the visitor building that goes through the swamp for a bit. I had good birding here and was able to see five woodpecker species. There was a lot of sparrows, especially White-throated Sparrows which I saw everywhere I went.
On the way out I was stopped by two men in their 20’s who asked me a lot of questions. I am not sure what that was about.
ebird checklist