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

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