I got in some wildlife photography during a family visit to Oak Island, North Carolina. My Uncle Mark, one of the best birders I know, put us on good birds all weekend, including 20 Mississippi Kites hunting the same farm field. Wowza.
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Mississippi kites were busy hunting newly hatched insects on the wing. Like kestrels, they eat their meals in midair.
Among the many Mississippi kites was a solitary swallow-tailed kite, the first I've ever seen. Its long tail isn't just for show. Each side works independently like the flaps on a fighter plane, giving the kite extraordinary maneuverability. Nothing is getting away from a kite.
The swallow-tailed kite's long wings give it extra lift so it barely has to flap its wings to stay aloft in the late-morning thermals.
We found an endangered red-cockaded woodpecker foraging behind a gas station in a tall patch of pines. My first!
A yellow-throated warbler was an obliging photo subject on a dirt road.
Sandwich terns like this one don't make it up to New Jersey very often, so this was my first as well. We saw least terns, Caspian terns and royal terns on the same beach in a mixed flock.
I spied this meadow vole following its nose at the edge of a marsh.
North Carolina also is home to the black and white Southeastern fox squirrel.
A semipalmated sandpiper is backlighted in the setting sun on the west end of the island.
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