Goose Creek State Park
Just six miles from Bath, where Goose Creek joins the Pamlico River, this beautiful State park offers picnic sites, a swimming beach, and miles of hiking & canoeing trails through coastal estuary and pine forests.
Birding - Lake Mattamuskeet
Visit nearby Lake Mattamuskeet, largest natural lake in North Carolina and winter stop for thousands of migrating Tundra Swans.
A good time to visit Mattamuskeet NWR is in December, for Swan Days, the local birding festival. Take a guided van tour around the various impoundments and pools. Waterfowl often spooked by humans on foot are less nervous when approached by vehicles. Tours last about an hour, during which time vans slowly wind through the roadways, giving ample time to view and photograph the thousands of ducks, geese, and swans nearby in the water. |
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Swanquarter Refuge & Gull Rock Game Land
Swanquarter National Wildlife Refuge is composed of islands and coastal marshlands containing potholes, creeks, swamp forests, and tidal drains. This brackish marsh ecosystem is dominated by black needlerush and other marsh grasses. Tens of thousands of canvasback, scaup, bufflehead, redhead, and ruddy ducks winter in adjacent bays and are visible from the Swan Quarter/Ocracoke ferry as it leaves Swan Quarter and passes by refuge waters. Many bird species nest here, including egrets, osprey, and other raptors. The refuge contains a stand of old-growth bald cypress that supports a great blue heron rookery. This protected land is an important corridor between Pamlico Sound and Lake Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge.
Located east of Swanquarter refuge, Gull Rock Game Land contains a diversity of wetland habitats, including brackish marsh, pond pine woodland, nonriverine swamp forest, and low and high pocosin. The natural area is home to 63 breeding birds, black bear, and American alligator. Canoeing and boating are great ways to see these marshes, offering good viewing of the waterfowl, but windy days can make for rough water in the more exposed areas.
Swanquarter National Wildlife Refuge (252) 926-4021
Gull Rock Game Land (919) 733-7291
Information courtesy of the Nature Conservancy.
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