North Carolina county #71 Island Creek Forest Walk
On my way home I stopped at Island Creek Forest Walk in Jones County.
This is a trail in the Croatan National Forest that has a good number of ebird checklists associated with it. The most eventful part of this stop was the ride there. Google maps took me down a road that was not paved and had numerous extremely large holes in the middle of it. I was a bit worried about off-roading with a trailer behind me, but luckily it held up like a champ. However, there were times I had to go as slow as 5 mph, and that road was nearly 5 miles long so I was stuck on it for about 45 minutes.
I had high hopes for the trail since I saw a lot of birds flying around on the dirt road. I would have gotten out and looked, but I was a bit nervous about breaking my trailer in the middle of a National Forest with no one around for miles, so I just concentrated on driving. Unfortunately, the trail was very dark and quiet.
I was warned by reviews online and by a fellow hiker at the entrance that this was not a National Park – the trail was not well-marked and it was easy to end up going a wrong way. So, I resolved to take every left to ensure I did a tight circle. The trail was supposed to be 3.7 miles long, but somehow my plan got me back to the entrance in only about 45 minutes.
I was not seeing or hearing a lot of birds, and in fact was not able to get a single photo, so I decided to call an end to the trip rather than heading back into the forest. There was an Acadian Flycatcher along with a few of the usual forest species, but I did not see or hear any warblers.
ebird checklist