First in a new commentary feature, Tabb’s Trails.
Verdant and beautiful, coastal North Carolina boasts hidden treasures of nature. For the most part, the maritime forest reserves and parks that are found throughout the area require no special equipment or knowledge to explore, just a willingness to spend some time enjoying the environment’s beauty and the unexpected surprises it offers.
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Sandy Run Park on the The Woods Road in Kitty Hawk is a 16-acre town park. The trail is a completely level, half-mile loop around a pond and marsh that is half boardwalk and half gravel and packed soil.
For birdwatchers, it is a small slice of paradise with a remarkable variety of birds in the trees and feeding in the ponds. For families with children, it is as good an introduction as there could be to the beauty and fascination of the natural world.
Spring has returned to Sand Run Park in Kitty Hawk.
Regular visitors for the past four or five years, the osprey pair have been busy repairing their nest that was destroyed in a storm last September.
As the weather warms, the winter residents leave, and there is perhaps no winter bird as ubiquitous as the yellow-rumped warbler. It’s rare to see one after April 1.
By Outer Banks standards, it was a snowy winter with one storm covering Sandy Run with more than 6 inches of snow. Among the reeds in the marsh a downy woodpecker found a meal.
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During spring, summer and fall, the waters of Sandy Run are most alive. If there is symbol for the park, it would be the yellow-bellied sliders. There are also large snapping turtles and an occasional painted turtle, but it’s the yellow-bellied sliders that can be seen everywhere in the ponds.
For families with children, lettuce is a great snack for the turtles.
With abundant fish, frogs and food, blue heron are regular residents, but they are not the only member of the heron family to call Sandy Run home.
Especially in the spring and summer, green heron perch on tree limbs and deadfall.
Woodpeckers have been working on the trees for years. Red-bellied woodpeckers are the most common, although downy woodpeckers are seen from time to time, as well as an occasional pileated woodpecker.
Talkative, highly visible and ever-present, tweeting cardinals are year-round residents.
In the summer, the dense foliage of a maritime forest surrounding a coastal marsh teems with life. The intense red of trumpet vines seems to attract pollinators in extraordinary numbers.
Part of Duck Pond Creek, Sandy Run is a catch-and-release-only fishing site with three kayak launches. The creek connects with Kitty Hawk Bay, although paddling to the bay includes a carry on foot across The Woods Road.
