Birding North Carolina
What makes the state so special? For one thing, North Carolina is still one of the country’s most varied, beautiful, and richly endowed states. It is large, covering 52,000 square miles and stretching more than 500 miles from east to west. It has a substantial population but still retains huge areas of wilderness or near-wilderness. And it has a greater range of altitudes than any other eastern state; from sea level along the Atlantic Coast to the 6,684-foot peak of Mt. Mitchell in the west. What does all this spell? Variety. And variety, as every birder knows, is the most essential ingredient in any recipe for determining what makes one place better than another for birds.
