Birds explode from the flock in chaotic flight. The birds with black tips on their wings are snow geese; the all-white birds are tundra swans. (Photo by Bill Hand)
It’s hard to miss such a raucous swarms of birds.
Along a narrow band of North Carolina’s coast, from the Pungo Unit of the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge to Pea Island, and from the Virginia line to the South Carolina line, tens of thousands of tundra swans and snow geese make their presence known.
Their white bodies dot shallow lakes and marshes, where they dip to the bottom for plants. There are so many birds they nearly block out the water they float in. It’s truly a sight to behold. But by March, the swarms will be gone, so now is your chance to catch the spectacle.
The geese and swans of Pungo are long-range, seasonal visitors. They raise their young in the arctic circle. The tundra swans choose the edges of Alaska (including the formidable chain of the Aleutian Islands), Hudson Bay and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Snow geese, meanwhile, lay their eggs even farther north, into northern Greenland.
About November the birds fly south to winter in fields, shallow marshes and lakes, mostly along the East and West coasts of the U.S. On the Eastern Seaboard they settle from southern New Jersey to the upper half of South Carolina in vast numbers.
The birds often mix together and, though both are large and white, they’re fairly easy to tell apart. The tundra swan is the bigger of the two with all-white plumage, black beaks and long necks. The juveniles have a gray hue. They can weigh as much as 21 pounds and have a wingspan of about 83 inches — just short of 7 feet.
Swans preen in a group. (Photo by Bill Hand)
Snow geese, meanwhile, have pinkish beaks and their white wings are tipped with black. They are smaller, and their wingspan is shorter at about 4 feet. You may spot an occasional blue morph, a goose with a white head but otherwise colored in bluish gray feathers.
Both birds are fond of aquatic plants but also rely on the fields that are grown by conservation centers with them in mind. While the swans spend most of the day in water, the geese are equally fond of hanging out in those cleared fields. Both squawk endlessly, with high-pitched hooting and honking.
The Pungo preserve, about an hour and a half north of Pamlico County, is one of the best places to see the birds. But some of the roads can be filled with treacherous potholes, so a vehicle with high clearance is wise.
David Rhodes of Selma tracks birds and geese in flight. (Photo by Bill Hand)
Debbie McCann, a first-time visitor from North Myrtle Beach, captures a photo from a raised stand. (Photo by Bill Hand)
You can download online maps of Pungo, and a kiosk at the entrance on North Carolina Highway 45 and Refuge Road sometimes has flyers you can grab. The entrance offers a nice spot to spread out your lunch on a railing and have a bite while you look over the woods and endless farmland.
The geese and swans are game birds, and Pungo is hunting land. Wearing a reflective yellow vest is required during hunting season. The birds are not endangered, though loss of habitat has required them to depend more on managed fields for food.
You can explore the grounds during the day. The meandering roads can be a puzzle and the keepers tend to open and close them randomly. But the scenery is beautiful and, wherever you find water, you will find the swans — as well as other beasts.
A screech owl keeps watch from a hollow tree. (Bill Hand)
A little reddish screech owl can be seen dozing in a tree hollow along Lake Run Road. Deer pop up occasionally and there’s a pretty good chance of spotting black bears wandering about. This is also the home of red wolves — the most endangered canids in the world. But they are shy and seeing them will make you a member of an exclusive club. You may also spot a flock of sandhill cranes hanging about the marshes or flying through the air.
Sandhill cranes make their own journey south. (Photo by Bill Hand.)
But the real show takes place in the evening on the fields between Pats Road and Vanstahl Road. Trust your phone’s GPS; there are no road signs identifying them.
According to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, more tundra swans spend the winter in this state than any other on the East Coast. The agency says between 65,000 and 75,000 swans migrate to northeastern North Carolina to take advantage of the abundant food sources found in our lakes, sounds and farms each fall.
Visitors will see that the number is not an exaggeration.
About an hour before dusk, get out your binoculars and cameras and look to the skies. You will see the birds coming: 10 or 15 at first, flying in neat single file. Soon those numbers will increase to 20 and 30. On the ground you will see a growing white band of swans and geese gathering together and hooting their endless songs.
The numbers will keep growing: Soon the birds will have given up flying single file, and the sky becomes alive with large spatterings of birds flying every which way. Their numbers on the ground are exploding, and their cries have gone from flowing and gentle to an endless, almost ear-splitting cacophony.
Birds explode from the flock in chaotic flight. The birds with black tips on their wings are snow geese; the all-white birds are tundra swans. (Photo by Bill Hand)
They will seem to slowly settle, but keep watch. Every so often, thousands of them lift from the ground like an explosion of feathers, and swarm about, crisscrossing one another, astonishingly avoiding collisions as there seems to be more birds than air in the sky.
It’s like a blackbird murmuration, only bigger, and exhibiting frenetic energy rather than poetic motion.
They settle after a few moments. All is reasonably calm. Then they explode again.
Like anything relating to wildlife, this excursion can be a gamble. On some days you will see more birds than others. Occasionally the birds will decide to be down for the night at a field you cannot find. Local farmers suggest that their evening location is partly determined by the wind. I have been making this trek for several years, and only once have I not found the birds come roosting time.
Toward evening the geese and swans fly in droves to fields to bed down. (Photo by Bill Hand)
There are other places to see the flocks. Lake Mattamuskeet and its many marshes offer a winter home. You don’t get the evening show but this massive lake — the largest in North Carolina and one of the shallowest, averaging at most 6 feet in depth — is beautiful, especially at sunrise and sunset. You’ll also see a wider variety of wildlife here: muskrats, voles, ducks of numerous varieties, herons and cormorants.
Other potential state sites include Pettigrew State Park’s Lake Phelps, Knott’s Island in Currituck, Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge on the Outer Banks. I have not watched for swans and geese at any of these spots. Perhaps I’ll add a couple to my birding bucket list.
But for now, Pongo will be the hotspot for me.
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