North Carolina county #41 Tanglewood Park
My afternoon trip with the Carolina Bird Club was to Tanglewood Park in Forsyth County. I was lucky enough to be shown around by two members of the Forsyth Audubon chapter who knew the park really well. I also got to learn that Forsyth is pronounced with the accent on the second syllable, in contrast to how I always pronounced it in the past.
Tanglewood Park is very large (over 1000 acres) and has all kinds of sports fields, a golf course, and even an old train (not working) in it. The Forsyth Audubon Society has marked and named a bunch of walking trail which produced a lot of nice birds for us.
I wish I had taken more photos of the park, but I was too busy looking for birds. I saw 42 species, which they called a slow day. We spent about 20 minutes at the start of the trip trying to make out a warbler at the very top of some tall trees. We finally determined it to be a Cape May Warbler. It was hard to get a photo of him but I finally got something usable.
We visited a lot of different sites at the park, including a small lake, some wide open areas, some marsh, some deep woods and the Yadkin River. There had been a lot of rain lately which caused the river to flood and block some of our paths, but we also got some views of Solitary Sandpipers who were hanging around in a muddy area that used to be a path.
At the end of the trip I was getting pretty tired from being out hiking since 7am, but we pushed on just a bit more to see a nesting site for a bunch of Great Blue Herons.
This is a great park, and highly recommended for a visit. There is a $2 entry fee.
ebird checklist