Outer Banks, N.C.

This was maybe my third or fourth trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Doesn’t matter, repeat trips to the Outer Banks are always different. It’s a long drive but the interstate makes it very doable. The last 100 miles is four-lane, then two-lane, then four-lane again until you cross the Roanoke Sound and enter the banks just below Nags Head at a junction called Whalebone. This time the weather was just plain hot. I remember one time when it was mild temperature and gale winds. All I did was sweat, this time around.

This is a famous strip of sand. Kill Devil Hill is to the left (north) about 10 miles. It’s just a big sand pile but I suppose you could say the trip from the trip to the moon started here. Of course, Hatteras is known for the shipwrecks that line the shore. I’d hate be blown off course and towards the Cape. It would be a slow, wet death. Below Hatteras is Ocracoke Island accessible by a free ferry. Below Ocracoke is Cape Lookout which is pretty much off limits to most of us. You are on about the same latitude as the northern half of Tennessee.

There are two distinct birding districts in this part of North Carolina. One is the Outer Banks themselves, of course. This ribbon of sand is fairly uniform for its entire length. Seasonal changes create the diversity. The coast is, of course, a major flyway so return birding trips are probably best done at different seasons. We were on the bottom two-thirds of the Outer Banks and what we saw was predictable and regular.

While the shore is the major attraction, birding is better on the mainland, swampy as it is. If you’ve never been to this part of the world, landscape-wise think of “Swamp Loggers” the TV show. The land is flat, wet, sandy, relatively empty. But lots of older pines just waiting for a red-cockaded woodpecker to drill into. You could get lost in there. We found the GPS map wasn’t adequate nor the NC state road map. But it teems with wildlife and birds. The towns are few and far between, the eateries likewise scattered, but you should make plans to stop in Dare County or the surrounding counties