Wings Over Water

Registration is open for the tenth annual Wings Over Water festival on the North Carolina coast. This year's festival runs November 7-12.

Welcome to Eastern North Carolina and the Outer Banks Here you'll enjoy miles of unspoiled landscapes, sandy beaches, rolling dunes, scrub thickets, broad marshes, pocosins, blackwater swamps, and maritime and inland forests. These varied habitats are rich in wildlife. Large acreages are protected as parks, reserves and wildlife refuges.

Autumn is a special time in Eastern North Carolina. The frantic summer tourist season is well past, and the land and water are left to those who wish to blend with nature. Wings Over Water will be your opportunity to enter this land of wildlife enchantment. Through field trips, workshops and interpretive programs, you will explore one of the most fascinating ecological settings in the United States.

Wings Over Water (WOW) offers programs for the amateur-to-serious birder, nature enthusiast, wildlife photographer, paddler, angler, and others who enjoy being up close with nature.

Participants, for a modest cost, can select from such varied experiences as:

• Venturing into areas with combined bird lists of nearly 400 species.
• Visiting North Pond on the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge on Hatteras Island, the hottest spot for fall birding in North Carolina.
• Traveling to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse area to search for a variety of shore and water birds.
• Experiencing Ghost Town Birding on Portsmouth Island
• Taking a ferry to the pirate Blackbeard's hang-out on Ocracoke Island to enjoy the quaint fishing village and check out the birds.
• Visiting the ancient maritime forests at Buxton Woods and Nags Head Woods for a look at these rare ecosystems.
• Traveling to Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge where eagles and other raptors are likely the causeway and entrance road.
• Exploring a blackwater swamp in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge
• Sliding into a kayak or canoe to explore a salt marsh environment.
• Wade in search of Clapper Rails, marsh sparrows and wrens at Oregon Inlet.
• Heading for the blue waters of the Gulf Stream off Cape Hatteras to search for pelagic birds.
• Experiencing a Red Wolf Howling where the nearly extinct animal is now fighting its way back.

Visit Wings Over Water for more information.