North Carolina county #27 Cedarock Park
I don’t have much planned for March since the migration doesn’t usually start in earnest until later in April, and most of the winter birds are leaving or gone. But I didn’t want to skip a whole week so I drove out to Alamance County to visit Cedarock Park.
I found this location on the Carolina Bird Club website which has lots of great resources, including an annotated Google Map with all the sites from the Birding North Carolina book that they helped provide details for, plus some additional sites that didn’t get into the book. You can find it here: www.carolinabirdclub.org/birdingnc/
There is a good variety of habitat and I walked about 3 miles of trails along a stream and over a hilly area, in addition to checking the edges of some large fields. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get any good bird photos – it can be difficult in the woods sometimes. That said, the birds were out and singing and the Goldfinches were looking great in their breeding plumage.
I got good but brief looks at my first true Spring migrant as well – Yellow-throated Warbler. This is a gorgeous bird with a black and white pattern on top and a bold deep yellow throat. There were a number of them in the woods and I was able to spend a lot of time learning their call very well.
This was a very scenic old looking dam of some sort. In general, the woods at Cedarock were very nice and it was very pleasant walking the trails. If I lived closer I would come back throughout the Spring to check for more warblers. There is also a historic farm on the property and it seems like a good place to bring the family.
ebird checklist