Last week I had the opportunity to go check out the North Carolina Museum of Art to see what kinds of birds I could find there. From Indigo Buntings, Goldfinches and Orchard Orioles to Red tailed Hawks and Nuthatches, I was in heaven.
With the sunflowers blooming in the back field, this was the place to be to catch some beautiful photos and nice clear sightings of all sorts of different species of birds.
Check out the video below to see what I found and click on the map link at the bottom of this post so that you can visit this amazing location for yourself.
Doing a bit of work from home today and decided to step outside for a backyard birding break. With 16 different species found in about an hour, I’d say that this was time well spent haha!
Here is a video of some of the birds I saw that I captured with my Canon 5DS. It’s nice to able photograph these beauties from the comfort of my patio.
These are a few of my favorite photos from the day. The Canon 5DS did pretty well in the low lighting of the morning light, even with fully extending my focal length to 600mm. Gorgeous!
Here is a video I made highlighting some of my favorite finds from my latest birding trip to the Pungo Unit at the Pocosin Lakes NWR and Lake Mattamuskeet NWR on the coastal plain of eastern North Carolina last week.
What a neat place to go bird watching, even in the middle of summer! 10/10 recommend a visit 🙂
Filmed on a Canon 5DS at the Pungo Unit at the Pocosin Lakes NWR – Pantego, NC & Lake Mattamuskeet NWR – Englehard, NC
One of the best spots to find Red headed Woodpeckers is along the American Tobacco Trail in New Hill, N.C. With that cherry red head and that deep black plumage, these striking birds are one of my favorite species of woodpeckers. Check out the video above to see some highlights from my trip there earlier this week.
Red headed Woodpecker
The Red-headed Woodpecker is a fiercely protective , vibrant bird that can be found over a large portion of the swamps, grasslands, and clearings throughout the United States. With a bright-red head, white underparts, and black backs, these feathered gems are easily identifiable whether they are deep in a forest or hanging out on trees coming up from the water.
Red-headed Woodpecker at the Old Tobacco Trail
These nomadic birds prefer to differ their breeding location year-after-year. However, even when not in breeding season, Red-headed Woodpeckers can be found nesting in dead trees and cavities in dead parts of living trees. Although both partners build a nest, the male woodpecker is the dominant craftsman. Speaking of mates, Red-headed Woodpeckers prefer to play “hide and seek” with potential partners as they dart around stumps, branches, and trees: once a mate is chosen, woodpeckers remain monogamous for a few consecutive years.
Red headed Woodpecker
There are also a few other interesting birds to be found along the American Tobacco Trail such as Green Herons, Mourning Doves, American Goldfinches, Northern Flickers, Red winged Blackbirds and Yellow billed Cuckoos.
If you plan to visit the area, it’s best to arrive early as this trail can get very crowded with joggers and bikers after 9am. I’ve also got a trip planned for next month so if you’d like to come with me to see the Red-headed Woodpecker (and other cool birds) check out the link below!
A few days ago, I had the chance to head down to the Surf City, N.C. area to photograph a home for a real estate listing. The interesting thing was that the owners and the real estate agent from Intracoastal Realty specifically wanted me to photograph the birds found in their yard and in the local area too!
A Red-winged Blackbird black-birding as hard as he can in a backyard of a home in Surf City N.C.
Knowing that this property was a fantastic place to view all kinds of shorebirds as well as Painted Buntings and Boat-tailed Grackles made me the happiest birder/ photographer ever! I couldn’t wait to get started
Love this view! Could totally picture sipping coffee and spotting winter migrants moving around in the marsh from here.Great EgretsGreat Egret Brown Pelican
I arrived at sunrise to capture pictures of the home, then spent the morning photographing the birds in the inter coastal marsh which was the backyard.
I thought it was really cool that this house was just a short walk away from the front door! No need to worry about finding a parking spot for 24/7/365 beach access. Priceless!
I also took a 3 min walk right across the street to take some photos of the beach. It was absolutely gorgeous out there! From Snowy Egrets to Pelicans, a Painted Bunting and Purple Martins, I ticked 15 different species in under 10 minutes so all in all, a wonderful to start the day!
Surf City beach home for sale on Sandy Lane. Any place that boasts Painted Buntings right in the backyard is a birders paradise in my book!
It would be pretty awesome to live at this home if you’re a birder, that is for sure 🙂 If you’d like to see the house & property, here’s a link below…
After finishing up at the house, I headed out to nearby Kenneth Batts Family Park in Surf City to see what else I could find.
Boat Tailed GrackleBlack Skimmers
About two minutes after I my feet hit the boardwalk, I spotted a pair of Black Skimmers flying low over the water hunting for food. Check them out in action in the video at the top of this page! So cool!
Hiding in the shadows, a Painted Bunting in a backyard in Surf City, NC
After a quick lunch break, I took a relatively short drive south to the Ft. Fisher SRA in search of the perfect Painted Bunting shot. I’d found a couple earlier that day in Surf City but they were hiding in the shadows so the photos weren’t great, lol!
White Ibis at Ft. FisherA Willet at Ft. FisherLaughing Gull
I chose Ft. Fisher because it offers the ideal habitat needed for finding Painted Buntings and other wonderful shorebirds.
Painted Bunting at Ft. FisherWell worth searching for, a colorful male Painted Bunting at Ft. Fisher, N.C.
Within just a few minutes of walking, the scrubby dense brush piles and open areas yielded me what I’d been searching for, a gorgeous male Painted Bunting singing away on his perch in perfect light. Success!
One of the best parts about living in central North Carolina is the opportunity to see all kinds of incredible birds in the springtime. In addition to the migratory species moving through, we’ve got access to view a small number of endangered species as they enter their breeding season.
Recently I took a quick trip to the Weymouth woods Preserve near Pinehurst N.C. to see if I could grab some photos and video of the endangered Red cockaded Woodpecker. Happily, I was not disappointed!
Shortly upon arrival, I found a nest in an old Long-leaf Pine tree and had the opportunity to watch a pair of woodpeckers flying in and out of their tree as they fed the nestlings inside. Check out the video below!
Unlike most North American woodpeckers, Red-cockaded Woodpeckers are a social species that live in family groups with a highly developed, cooperative breeding system. This also makes them unique amongst all bird species–only 3% of bird species breed in this manner. Another interesting behavior to note is that these woodpeckers use a group of trees, known as a “cluster”, to develop nesting/ roosting cavities en mass. Family groups generally consist of 2–6 birds with one monogamous breeding pair and 1–4 helpers. The helpers are typically the pair’s male offspring from the previous breeding season, who have delayed their own reproduction in order to help their parents in raising their siblings. The family group grows in size during the course of the breeding season with the hatching and fledgling of new young.
Red cockaded Woodpecker at the Weymouth Woods Preserve
Red cockaded Woodpeckers are adapted to mature, living, open-pine forests. It is estimated that there are about 6,000 groups of red-cockaded woodpeckers, or 15,000 birds from Florida to Virginia and west to southeast Oklahoma and eastern Texas, representing about 1 percent of the woodpecker’s original range.
The Red-cockaded is the only woodpecker which excavates cavities exclusively in living pine trees. Cavity trees that are being actively used have numerous, small resin wells which exude sap. The birds keep the sap flowing apparently as a cavity defense mechanism against rat snakes and possibly other predators. The typical territory for a group ranges from about 125 to 200 acres. Habitat loss and degradation have greatly reduced its range and negatively affected this species, which has been considered Federally Endangered since 1968.
Seeing these lovely birds in the wild was absolutely thrilling! I’m so glad that I was able to photograph them at the Weymouth Woods Preserve.
A few days ago, I took a quick trip to Jordan Lake with my son to see what I could find. We spotted a few Bald Eagles and a Hooded Warbler but were most pleased to find a whole bunch of fledgling Tufted Titmice flying for the first time.
What a joy it was to watch these tiny birds exploring the world.
All photos and video were captured with my mighty Canon 5DS. If you are interested in getting shots like these with this 50 MP beast of a camera, please check out the link below to Canon USA.
Birdwatching NC is sponsored by Canon USA and I am proud to be a Canon shooter. After 13 years of trusting my professional photography business to Canon’s line of products, I cannot recommend this company strongly enough. If you have have any questions about my gear, shoot me a message!
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