North Carolina county #25 Mayo Lake Park
Yesterday afternoon I went to Mayo Lake Park in Person County. Mayo Lake looks like one of those man-made lakes with all the craggy shores and arms coming from it, as opposed to a more round natural looking lake. I believe it is used as a reservoir.
The lake must have a lot of Largemouth Bass in it, since there were signs for three upcoming fishing tournaments, and about 20 trucks with boat trailers in the parking lot. Mayo Park is used as a boat launch for the lake.
In addition to the boat launch, there are bathroom facilities, a playground and a number of short (<1 mile) trails in the park. I walked along several of these. It was cold and windy near the lake, but there were a bunch of birds out. I saw most of the usual suspects, including a good number of Golden-crowned Kinglets.
The surprise visitor was a Red-breasted Nuthatch. I only saw one of these all last year – a visitor to Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina. Then there was what seemed to be an irruption of them in the beginning of the winter and I had a visitor in my backyard for a while. I haven’t seen one for about a month and a half now, so I was delighted when one flew in to join a group of Kinglets.
This is a nice park and all the bass fishing got me thinking about that old pastime of mine. I think it would be too hard to concentrate on the water and ignore the birds now though.
ebird checklist
Very pretty. Seems like quite a adventure.