Forsyth Audubon offers a wide variety of opportunities to watch birds with fellow Auduboners. Close to home there are Second Saturday Bird Walks each month. Day trips explore a little further afield, checking out great birdings spots within a couple of hours of Winston-Salem. The chapter also plans winter and spring field trips with overnight stays at coastal and mountain locations, like the Outer Banks, the ACE Basin in South Carolina and Monterey, Virginia.
Weekend Field Trips. We hold at least two weekend field trips each year. Beginners are always welcome. Our winter trip usually takes advantage of the Martin Luther King holiday in January and spends three nights at a coastal location. Recent winter destinations have included Chincoteague/Assateague on the Eastern Shore, Carteret County in North Carolina and Huntington Beach in South Carolina. The Outer Banks is also a popular trip, and that was where we headed in January 2012. More than 30 people visited Alligator River, Lake Mattamuskeet and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuges, Bodie Lighthouse, and the new Audubon Pine Island Sanctuary in Duck. The group saw over 130 bird species, including a very cooperative American Bittern at Pea Island. We also traveled to the Outer Banks and the refuges in April 2013 to see migrating shorebirds among 100-plus species.
Spring trips are timed to take advantage of migration, with some going south in April to such places as South Carolin's ACE Basin and others heading to the mountains in late May or early June as migrating species reach their summer breeding areas. Monterey in northwest Virginia always is a popular trip, but so are the North Carolina mountains. In 2012, our spring trip visited the Cataloochee section of Great Smokey Mountains National Park, searched for high-elevation birds along the Heintooga Ridge Road and stopped at numerous Blue Ridge Parkway overlooks. Our Field Trip Coordinator is Rob Rogers.
For our 2014 destinations, stay tuned. Contact Rob if you have a suggestion for a trip.
Click on links below to see recaps for other recent weekend trips.
Outer Banks, April 2013
Huntington Beach, January 2013 - see a video created by David Shuford
Great Smoky Mountains, June 2012 - see a video created by David Shuford
Outer Banks, January 2012