Category Archives: Birding Trips and Tours North Carolina

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Warbler Spring migration bird watching trips in North Carolina, South Carolina and New Jersey

By Sally Siko

The grass is greening up and the flowers are starting to bloom. Spring is on the way and with it, new species of warblers will soon be arriving in the eastern United States.
Soon the woods and fields will be filled with chirps, buzzes, trills and tweets as the birds sing in search of a mate and to establish nesting territories.

Warbler vocalizations fall into two categories – songs and calls. In general, we define bird song as a structured, usually complex vocalization serving either or both of two purposes – to defend territories and to attract mates.
Most of the songs are sung by the males, though females do also sing territorially or for pair bonding, especially in the tropics.
Generally their calls are usually shorter and structurally simpler, serving a wider range of functions, including courtship, signaling alarm, or communicating a change in location.



Interestingly, almost no songbirds know their songs by instinct. Rather, most need to learn to sing.
Warblers begin learning songs as nestlings by hearing the songs of adults nearby. In this way, song traditions (known to biologists as “memes”) are passed down in songbird neighborhoods from year to year.
In fact many warbler species have area-specific dialects.
Makes me wonder if our warblers have a southern accent lol!



I can’t wait for spring migration to kick off! It’s so much fun to lead my birding tours, showing off these beautiful feathered gems to my guests.
I’ve got 80 new tour dates available for booking in the Carolina’s as well as in eastern New Jersey and coastal Maine.
If you’d like to join me to go birding this spring, check out the calendar shown below for location and date information.


Feel free to send me an email if ya have any questions about upcoming trips too!
Happy birding-
Sally

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my mighty mirrorless monster, the @canonusa #R5

Birding Trips and Tours North Carolina, Birdwatching News

Spring bird watching tours in North Carolina

By Sally Siko

The first signs of spring are showing up here in NC. The grass is turning greener, the days are trending warmer and the daffodils will soon be in bloom.
This means that migration is right around the corner and with that, tons of new birds flying in to spend a few weeks or months on the Atlantic coast.



I want to see ALL the birds and can’t wait to share these birding experiences with my guests which is why I’m excited to offer a greatly expanded bird tour schedule in 2024.
80+ dates are now open for you to book a birding trip with me this year in North Carolina, South Carolina, Maine and New Jersey from now through late summer.



For details please check out the link below and if ya have any questions feel free to send me an email anytime!

Go Birding With Me: Best Life Birding Trips, Guided Group Birding Tours & Bird Photography Workshops


Happy birding,
Sally

Birding Trips and Tours North Carolina

Tundra Swans in eastern NC

By Sally Siko

One of my favorite winter residents of NC is the Tundra Swan. Each November, thousands of them arrive in to spend the cooler months in our eastern counties.
They quickly fill up the impoundments and farm fields, hooting, honking and whistling, their calls can be heard from a mile away.



Tundra Swans nest in northern Alaska and in Canada’s Northwest Territories, Nunavut, northeastern Manitoba, northern Ontario, and northwestern Quebec.
Interestingly, Tundra Swans break off into 2 distinct groups of eastern and western migrating populations when traveling between breeding and wintering grounds.
 Swans that nest east of Point Hope in northern Alaska winter on the Atlantic coast, while birds breeding from Point Hope south & west winter along the Pacific.


It seems odd for the swans in the Coleville River region of Alaska to make such a long trip east which spans the United States when a flight due south/west to California is quite a bit closer.
 Whatever the reason, I’m glad they are here!

These impressive birds will stick around eastern North Carolina for a couple more weeks before heading north so you’ve still got time to enjoy them if ya get out there soon.

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my mighty mirrorless monster, the @canonusa #R5

Birding Trips and Tours North Carolina, North Carolina rare bird alert, Out There with the Expert

A Sedge Wren encounter in Durham NC

By Sally Siko

It’s been a good winter of birding so far.
Bird number 180 for the year appeared this morning in the form of a sweet looking Sedge Wren in Durham county NC.
My friend Corie and I spotted it next to a field flitting around in the tangled undergrowth of a sharp thorned bit of scrubby bush.
This little guy was (as is the case with many species of wrens) very, very vocal which made him easy to locate in the dense tangle.
Yet, actually getting a clean look at it (much less a photo lol) was difficult at best.

The problem was that the bird hardly sat still for more than three seconds. Making matters worse, in addition to all of the twigs and leaves between my lens and the bird, the light was very harsh with dark shadows, and blown highlights.
I really tested the limits of my @canonusa R5’s animal eye focus detection lol!
It took us around 45 minutes of waiting for the bird to pop out of the center of the bush, and even then there was always a twig or a leaf partially concealing the view.
In the end I was satisfied with the photos I was lucky to snap and grateful for the opportunity to even see this bird at all.
Success lol!



Sedge Wrens are a winter resident of North Carolina in our eastern counties.
Here in central NC, they are considered a rare sight so spotting one in the Durham area was a real treat.
They are best found in transitional areas where marshes blend into open fields and especially where there are patches of brush for them to hide and stalk prey.

Once called the Short-billed Marsh Wren, these birds are similar looking to the Carolina and Marsh Wrens we’ve got in NC.
Measuring about 4.5in long, Sedge wrens are streaked with black and brown plumage.
They’ve got white bellies and throats, with soft brown buff coloring on the sides and breasts.
Their tails have a black barring pattern on the topside.
What really stands out though is that bill which is noticeably shorter than that of its relatives.
What a cutie!
If you’d like to see this bird for yourself, I’ve attached a screenshot of the birds location.
I hope that you get to see it too 🙂

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my mighty mirrorless monster, the @canonusa #R5

Birding Trips and Birdwatching Tours in SC, Birding Trips and Tours North Carolina, Birding Trips in SC, Biridng Trips and Tours in SC

Why are Painted Buntings so colorful?

By Sally Siko

With every color of the rainbow showing in his plumage, the Painted Bunting is truly a stunning bird to photograph and see in real life.


But what makes the male Painted Buntings plumage so vibrant?
 As it turns out, it’s a combination of feather structure and three pigments which contribute to the colorful feathers found on these handsome birds: melanin, carotenoids and porphyrins.



*Melanin-Naturally produced by the birds displays as black, brown, red and pale yellow in feathers.



* Carotenoids- Birds which display the reds, oranges and yellows in their plumage is attributed to carotenoids when they eat specific plants or insects, like spiders or grasshoppers, which eat the carotenoids the birds need for their feather colors.



* Porphyrins- A modified amino acid producing pink, brown, red and green pigmentation.



*Feather structure-That bright blue to violet head color is actually a trick of the light.
When sunlight passes through certain proteins and pockets of air trapped between feather barbules — tiny filaments extending from the barbs of a feather — it refracts, just like light passing through a prism.



Unfortunately since winter is here, most of the Painted Buntings have migrated south.
They will return to North & South Carolina in May and stick around through September-ish.
Look for these guys in our coastal areas in scrubby wet habitats, in the scrub brush just behind the sand dune line, at the edges of woods and flying over open tall-grass fields.

Btw, I’m planning on heading back out later this year to share these beauties with my tour guests so I’ve added new trips in 2024 to find the Painted Bunting in NC & SC.
If you’d like to join me, check out the link in my bio for more info and available group tour dates or feel free to shoot me a DM anytime if ya have any questions 🙂

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my mighty mirrorless monster, the @canonusa #R5

Birding Trips and Tours North Carolina, Field Notes

White-crowned Sparrows at the Guilford County Farm

By Sally Siko

Every year flocks of White crowned Sparrows move through central North Carolina during migration.
Now winter is here, their populations are spread out and since they’ve settled in they’ve become a somewhat uncommon sight.
 Because I don’t get to enjoy these birds very often, it was fun to grab a few photos of these beauties this morning while birding at the Guilford County, Farm near Elon, NC.



With those bold stripes on their heads, White crowned Sparrows are unmistakable to ID in the field as their aptly named moniker suggests. 
Measuring over 6in in length, they are larger than other sparrow species too!
You’re most likely to find them hopping across the ground and through low foliage in dense brushy habitats. 
 As was the case with the White crowns pictured here, they are also fond of hunting for a meal in the grassy edges of hedge lines popping out of the brush for a second or two, landing on a fence or out in the open to scope out its surroundings.



The White-crowned Sparrows will stick around central North Carolina until May, then departing for their breeding grounds across northern Canada, Alaska, California and northern New Mexico.
If you’d like to go see them for yourself this winter, I’ve included a link to their exact location at the Guilford County Farm in this post.

Photos by Sally Siko of @bestlife_birding captured on my mighty mirrorless monster, the @canonusa #R5

Birding Trips and Tours North Carolina

A White Ibis at Carolina Beach

By Sally Siko

Check out this handsome White Ibis.
I spotted him last week while birding on Carolina Beach. I’d stopped off at Carolina Beach lake to take a quick peek at the water to see if there were any interesting or unexpected birds flying around when a small flock of Ibis’s flew in and landed in the drainage creek on the eastern side of the lake.
Although I’ve seen hundreds of Ibises this year these birds were just so beautiful that I had to grab a few photos 🙂



White Ibis’s are a year round resident of North Carolina and are most commonly found in our eastern coastal counties. During the breeding season they are known to nest on our barrier islands with other shorebirds near the lower Cape Fear river area.
Now that winter is here, you can find them grazing in farm fields and foraging for a meal in freshwater & brackish suburban ponds, and waterfowl impoundments.


An opportunistic hunter of the shoreline, these handsome white birds enjoy a varied diet of crayfish, crabs, frogs, minnows, snakes and even insects. Look for them in the grass along the waters edge and wading through shallow, show moving waters.



Photos by Sally Siko of @bestlife_birding captured on my mighty mirrorless monster, the @canonusa #R5

By the way, I’ve added more that 80 new birding tour dates to my Best Life Birding trip schedule.
Check out the calendar below and book your next birding adventure with me today!

Birding Trips and Tours North Carolina

Spending time with Ruddy Turnstones in eastern NC

By Sally Siko

Here one of my favorite shorebirds, the Ruddy Turnstone.
I found this handsome little one on the jetty at Ft.Fisher near Wilmington NC.
I’d made the somewhat treacherous walk across the slippery jetty when I spotted this little guy picking along the waterline. What a beauty!
Swinging my camera onto my back, I hand over hand climbed down the side of the rocks to lay on the narrow strip of sand at its base in order to get these photos at eye level.
The nice thing was that this bird was quite amicable to my presence allowing a nice close up view from about 15 ft away.



Although they breed in the Arctic, Ruddy Turnstones may be found in the coastal areas of North Carolina throughout most of the year in varying numbers. They’re most often spotted on rocky jetty’s, inlets and saltwater shorelines with pebble beaches.
Interestingly their preference for foraging in these types of habitats is actually how they earned their name.
They’ll scour the shoreline flipping over stones, pebbles and shells to look for prey possibly hiding underneath. It’s a unique behavior that’s really neat to watch.


The Ruddy Turnstone is also nicknamed the calico cat of shorebirds. During the breeding season, both males and females have bright orange legs, an orange-and-black patterned back, white belly, and black-and-white face. As seen in these photos, their nonbreeding plumage look similar to their breeding attire, but during the winter it’s replaced with a warm brown rather than then that distinct orange and black color combination.
Since they have to walk on wet rocks, the pads of their orange feet are grooved plus their toenails are short and sharply curved which gives them added grip while walking on those slippery surfaces.
 Such fascinating birds!

Photos by Sally Siko of @bestlife_birding captured on my mighty mirrorless monster, the @canonusa #R5

By the way, I’ve added more that 80 new birding tour dates to my Best Life Birding trip schedule.
Check out the calendar below and book your next birding adventure with me today!

Birding Trips and Tours North Carolina

Birding tour in eastern NC- birdwatching in the OBX

By Sally Siko

Birding Trips and Tours North Carolina

Canvasback Ducks in eastern NC

By Sally Siko

Few species of waterfowl capture my attention quicker than a Canvasback.
I photographed this pair while birding in the Outer Banks region of NC.
The largest species of diving duck in North America, these birds are absolutely regal looking as the glide across the water.
One of my favorite things about the Canvasbacks drake’s appearance are their vibrant blood red eyes paired with that dark red head.
 When you make eye contact with them, it feels like they’re staring directly into your soul haha!
The hens are quite lovely too dressed in soft tan, cream and warm brown plumage. Their understated elegance is much appreciated when watching them glide through a flock of raucous wigeons and coots.

A wintertime resident of North Carolina, Canvasbacks are found in our coastal counties from late October through early April. They are usually spotted in large bodies of shallow slow moving waters such as marshes, estuaries, lakes and bays. The large freshwater ponds here in the OBX are perfect examples of their preferred habitat. Voracious consumers of aquatic vegetation, their favorite food is wild celery.
So much so that the Latin species name of the Canvasback (Aythya valisineria) is similar to that of the wild celery (Vallisneria americana). A case of “you are what you eat” in feathered form lol!
They are also fond of eating pondweeds, water lilies, sedges, mollusks, small crustaceans, minnows and insects.

I’ll be returning to the OBX this weekend to learn another birding trip and am hoping that I’ll have another opportunity to catch a few shots of them this winter before they depart for their breeding grounds in the spring.
I can’t wait to get back out there!
By the way, if you’d like to see this species for yourself, I’ve added 40 new dates of Birding trips in the Outer Banks between now and the end of the year.
Reserve your spot now as these tours fill up quickly.
Check the calendar below for more information or shoot me a DM anytime with questions.
Happy birding!
-Sally



Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my mighty mirrorless monster, the @canonusa #R5