I went to Moratoc Park in Williamston last week to see what I could see.  It is a nice place for an early walk or a picnic overlooking the Roanoke River, which is the heart of an expansive bottomland forest system spanning multiple counties.  My birding companion and I observed American Redstart, Yellow-throated Warbler, Prothonotary Warbler, and Summer Tanager singing as we walked along the gameland trail (a dirt road along the river’s edge west of the little park).  We also had Purple Martin, Northern Rough-Winged Swallow, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Blue Grosbeak, Common Yellowthroat, and Great Blue Heron from the wooden deck around the park’s main building.  There was a pair of Spotted Sandpipers bobbling along the far sandy bank of the river.

East of the park, the nearby Wildlife Commission boat ramp at the Roanoke River is a good place to see barn swallows and cliff swallows, which are currently nesting under the US17-US13 highway bridge. The barn swallows are recognized by their long forked tails.   The cliff swallows are less common and this is a good place to find them each year.  Like the barn swallows, cliffs are “red-white-and-blue” (really rust-red, ivory color, and steely blue-black) but they have squared-off, blunt tails.  It is a little hard to distinguish the two species as they fly swiftly back and forth, but very impressive to see their aerobatics and the mud nests they build under the bridge.

Closer to our area, one of my favorite local hotspots is Oakdale Cemetery in Washington.   It is a safe place to walk and observe many bird species.  There are paved driveways or you can walk on grassy lanes.  If you have mobility issues, you can bird from your parked car at the edge of a variety of habitats, from open meadowy field, to forest edge, and even a cypress wetland.