Wings Over Water 2024

Trip:49
Nights: 170-172

So we've hit the planning vacations around birds stage of life. Wings Over Water is a bird and wildlife festival held on the Outer Banks every year in October. We booked a dry campsite at Oregon Inlet, which is a National Park campground at the north side of the bridge between Bode Island and Pea Island.

We got in late Thursday afternoon (the 24th) and just hung out at the campsite that evening. There was a stiff wind coming out of the North which kept it cool and chased us into the camper. No wood fires are allowed at the campground, not that I would have started one in that wind. We did take advantage of the clear skies and lack of light pollution to do some star gazing that evening, but otherwise played games in the camper and hit the hay early as we had a birding tour scheduled at sunrise on Friday.

We spent Friday morning on Roanoke Island, birding at the wildlife refuge and grounds of Fort Raleigh. After a lunch break we explored Fort Raleigh and the history behind the lost colony, and went back over to the NWR visitor center. After that we headed down Hwy 12 to the Pea Island NWR visitor center, where we timed it perfectly as there was a tremendous number of ducks on the ponds there. I had non-existent duck ID skills, but a very nice local birder generously let us tag along and pepper her with questions for about an hour, and we learned a lot in that hour. That evening we had dinner at a local seafood place, and called it an early night as we had a repeat day planned for Saturday.

On Saturday morning we started at the Bode Island lighthouse and spent the morning observing birds in the marsh around the lighthouse and the surrounding pine forests. That afternoon we went back to Pea Island but the 10s of thousands of ducks that were there on Friday had taken advantage of the strong winds from the north to continue their trips south. We ended up lounging at the campsite in the late afternoon before grilling burgers for dinner. We ended up identifying 85 species over the weekend, 19 of which were life birds.

The trip home on Sunday was uneventful.

Oregon Inlet is a nice NPS campground. There are W/E sites but you'll need to book 11 months in advance to get one. The dry sites are fine in the shoulder seasons, but in high summer you'd be camping on sand with absolutely no shade. There bathhouses are fine, and the showers are enclosed outdoor shows. Fine in July, not so much in late October. There is a marina store directly across the street for snacks and the normal camp store kind of stuff.