american avocet pea island nwr | Best Life Birding- Birdwatching Tours

By Sally Siko

One of my favorite visitors in NC are the American Wigeons.
I absolutely love their plumage patterns featuring that striking mix of bright green, white and warm brown feathers.
They are fun to photograph too!
These guys have boisterous personalities, constantly stirring up trouble in a mixed flock in an effort to snatch a meal from their rivals lol!
I captured these images last year while birding in the OBX. It’s been a long year waiting for December to roll in and I can’t freak’n wait to get back out there next week to enjoy these beautiful feathered gems again 🙂

A wintertime resident of the Tarheel State, the American Wigeons breeding range extends from the state of Alaska south through Canada’s Prairie Provinces and down through the U.S. Prairie Pothole Region. Each autumn they fly south to spend the cooler months in Mexico and the Caribbean Islands as well as locations along the Pacific, Gulf and Atlantic coasts here in the United States.

Preferring large open bodies of water away from the woods, large flocks American Wigeons are a fairly common sight in the eastern Piedmont region and coastal areas of North Carolina. Look for them in wide open freshwater marshes, lakes, rivers, ponds, brackish bays, impoundments and estuaries from now through late March/early April.

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

About an hour into the trip at the Pea Island NWR, the wind picked up as a cold front pushed in from the north.
I mean in an instant, it really got crazy out there! Gusts of 50mph wind plus a driving cold rain that just cut right through ya. More than once, the wind was blowing so hard, it felt like it could rip the 600mm lens from my fingers at any moment (shout out to @canonusa for building a kick ass camera that can exceed performance expectations in weather like that).

There were actually white caps churning on the surface of the normally glass-smooth North Pond. It was nuts!
Despite the foul weather we still saw tons of great stuff including these beauties, the American Avocet.

This medium sized shorebird is indeed a lovely sight dressed in its winter plumage of grey and white, yet it’s most striking field mark is their delicate bill which is long with a distinct upward curving tip. The Avocets use their bills to skim along the water’s surface, in search of insects and small crustaceans.

As seen in the photo above, these sociable birds will often move through the water in flocks, feeding & roosting together with other waders like Godwits, Herons and Ibis.

The American Avocet is a relatively common sight here on Pea Island from late July through April but becomes more difficult to find May through June.
Look for them in slow moving, shallow bodies of fresh/brackish water marshes and ponds in our coastal impoundments throughout the OBX.
Aren’t they beautiful?

Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc on the fabulous full frame @canonusa
#5Ds