Picture Of The Week 12-31-07

Where: Swan Quarter, NC • Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge (NWR)

Notes: I was blessed enough to be able to take a couple of days over the holidays to head out on another birding adventure with a good friend. The Tundra Swan was our target bird for this trip and we were not disappointed. The Mattamuskeet Refuge is located nine miles east of Swan Quarter, North Carolina by U.S. Highway 264 and U.S. Highway 94 in Hyde County and birds were everywhere. The property has a 40,000 acre lake divided in half by a causeway (Rt. 94). The afternoon we arrived was gray and cloudy with light too flat for photography, but that gave us time to scout out the territory and find a good starting point for the next day. The photo on the left was taken in the early morning hours before sunrise; the day was off to a good start. We covered several refuge trails by vehicle as well as the causeway several times that day. We quickly found that getting in close to these massive four to five foot long birds would be a challenge. They are quite skittish. Just pulling the truck over onto the roadside quickly sent them swimming away. Not the peaceful graceful look I was going for. We tried to get in closer to them all day. Then, at the end of the day, just as the daylight was fading, on our last crossing towards the far corner of the causeway our persistence paid off. There was an adult pair with a juvenile feeding around forty feet off shore and this time they did not turn away as all the other swans had. The adults looked up upon our arrival but quickly settled down and went back to feeding. Each time they plunged their long necks underwater to reach their vegetarian dinner, I crept up a little closer. Soon I was sitting on the edge of the lake shore with the birds only thirty feet in from of me. It was awesome to just sit and study these beautiful animals in such detail.