North Carolina county #70

Neuse River Recreation Area

Craven County was easy, since I camped in the location I planned to bird – Neuse River Recreation Area.  This is part of Croatan National Forest and the specific campground I stayed in was Flanners Beach Campground.  You can see my Cricket trailer below.  This was only the second time I’ve used it and so far it is a lot of fun.

Neuse River Recreation Area has some nice trails around it and also a really nice beach on the mouth of the Neuse River.  I had meant to bring a monopod or tripod to try out some beach photos but forgot, but most of the photos came out OK anyway.

I had to take this one quick since after about two minutes clouds covered the moon and it never did return.

Typically when I do these trips, I schedule no more than three locations in a day.  This time, my plan was to cover my camping location in the last morning before I left.  However, I was so exhausted from the heat, walking, and early start that day that I fell asleep as soon as I got back to the camper.  When I woke I still had a couple of hours of light so figured I would cover the location that evening instead.

The only miscalculation was that I had to go back and make dinner for myself, which I didn’t want to do in the dark, so I ended up having to skip the sunset.

The bird activity was pretty good for a while, and I spotted two more Summer Tanagers, along with some Red-headed Woodpeckers, a Northern Flicker, Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher, and several White-breasted Nuthatches.  There were some gulls or terns in the far distance but I couldn’t make them out because I didn’t bring my big binoculars (and still don’t have a spotting scope).  There were several Ospreys nearby catching fish and I managed to get a few photos of one.

Osprey

For birding, this was a good coastal forest location with nice trails and beach access.  I could see coming back here with the kids for some beach fun – the waves were very mild and from watching some fishermen I could see that the water depth increased extremely gradually.


I had one more county to cover on this trip but my update for it will probably not come for a few days.

ebird checklist

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