North Carolina county #40

Bog Garden and Hamilton Lakes Park

My first trip as part of the spring Carolina Bird Club meeting was to two locations in Guilford County: the Greensboro Bog Garden, and Hamilton Lakes Park.  During my field trips with the club, I do not bring my backpack and switch lenses, so I just used my phone to record the locations.  It’s a new phone though (Google Pixel XL) so the photos usually come out ok.  I still used my camera to try to grab some bird photos though.

Bog Garden

The Bog Garden is a nice park with a roughly 1 mile loop on a boardwalk.  It was early morning and overcast, so it was a bit dark under the trees for photos, but I did get some shots of a pair of Barred Owls – it looked like one was feeding the other.  I also saw several warbler species, including Worm-eating Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Northern Parula, Black-and-white Warbler, Pine Warbler, and Northern Waterthrush.  Worm-eating and Northern Waterthrush were both my first for the year.

At the halfway point, there is an overlook over a marshy pond where we spotted Solitary Sandpiper and Spotted Sandpiper.

Solitary Sandpiper

After we were finished, we took a quick drive to Hamilton Lakes Park.

Hamilton Lakes Park and some fellow birders

This was a larger park and we hiked about 1.75 miles of it.  I didn’t actually see any lakes but there were a ton of warblers here.  In fact it was the best warbler spot I’ve been at all year so far.  We got 10 species of warbler, Scarlet Tanagers, a Baltimore Oriole, and 3 species of Thrush.  We also got good looks at a Red-shouldered Hawk in her nest feeding young.  There was even a hummingbird flying around.  My favorite was the Chestnut-sided Warbler, which I have seen in the fall before but not their beautiful spring plumage.

Black-throated Blue Warbler

These were two great locations and I highly recommend stopping by if you are in Guilford during a migration season.

ebird checklist - Bog Garden

ebird checklist - Hamilton lakes Park

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