| Home |
 |
Click on arrows to show pull-down menus:
|
| Home |
|
Click on arrows to show pull-down menus:
|
|
Fort Fisher State Recreational Area, Kure Beach, New Hanover County, NC
Located on Pleasure Island at the southern tip of New Hanover County, NC, this area offers a beach (on the Atlantic coast), an aquarium, and the Basin Trail, which extends west through a marshy and brushy area to the banks of the Cape Fear River on the west side of the island. Bald Head Island is south of Fort Fisher, and is actually connected by the (very long!) beach. To read more at this place, visit the website of Fort Fisher State Recreational Area, New Hanover County, NC. For directions, see this live map.
Basin Trail 8/12/11
 |
|
| A view from the boardwalk of several White Ibises and a Great Egret |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| White Ibises. Photo by Karl D. Gottschalk. | White Ibis landing | White Ibis in flight | White Ibis in the marsh |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| Spider wasp | Will Cook and Harry LeGrand agree that this is a Salt Marsh Skipper. The clincher was behavior: it feeds on marsh grass, close to the ground. Compare Jeff Pippen's 2008 Salt Marsh Skipper photo. | Tumbling flower beetle | Seaside Dragonlet |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Salt Marsh Pink (Sabatia stellaris) | Sea Ox-eye Daisy | Flower fly (Pseudodoros clavatus) on an Asian Dayflower | Bee fly (Exoprosopa fascipennis) | Brackish-water Fiddler Crab |
 |
 |
Basin Trail, New Hanover County, NC 8/11/11
 |
 |
 |
||
| Juvenile White Ibis and adult Great Egret sharing cedar tree | Juvenile Yellow-crowned Night Heron | Sanderlings (20) |
 |
 |
 |
|
| Great Egret | Great Egret in flight | Seaside Dragonlet |
 |
 |
 |
||
| Brackish-water Fiddler Crab #1 | Brackish-water Fiddler Crab #2 | Brackish-water Fiddler Crab #3 |
Battery Buchanan Tour Stop, New Hanover County, NC 8/10/11
 |
 |
|||
| Sand Fiddler Crab | Brackish-water Fiddler Crab |
Battle Acre, New Hanover County, NC 8/10/11
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| Horace's Duskywing | Pennywort | Typical Firewheels | Pink Firewheels |
Battery Buchanan Tour Stop 5/24/11
 |
 |
|||
| Yellow Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta qudrivittata) | Yellow Rat Snake |
 |
 |
||
| Male Sand Fiddler Crab | Male Sand Fiddler Crabs: they competed for a crab hole, and the one on the right won. |
Basin Trail 5/24/11
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Golden-winged Skimmer | Katydid on Prickly Pear flower | Diamondback Terrapin | Tricolored Heron (in Cape Fear River) | Thread-waisted Wasp, perhaps resting |
Battery Buchanan Tour Stop 5/23/11
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| Great Egret | Wharf Crab | Wharf Crab | Sand Fiddler and Brackish-water Crabs |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Basin Trail 5/22/11
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
| Red-winged Blackbird | Snowy Egret | Campsomeris plumipes wasp on Firewheel | Prickly Pear in flower |
Basin Trail 1/17/11
The weather started out cloudy and rained most of the day.
 |
 |
 |
||
| Hooded Mergansers, on pond near Aquarium, with grass in foreground | Duck (brown head) with eel (according to Ed Corey) prey. Ed and Josh Southern agree that the duck is a female merganser. | Turkey Vulture taking off from viewing platform |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| Subadult White Ibis | Snowy Egret at Battery Buchanan | Mystery bird, may be Yellow-rumped Warbler (flashes of yellow) | Male Boat-tailed Grackle, in Battle Acre parking lot. |
Basin Trail 1/16/11
This was the only sunny day of the trip.
 |
 |
 |
||
| Cape Fear River mudflats, seen from near end of the Basin Trail | Wading birds on the mudflats. The one on the right is a Dunlin (ID thanks to Dave Lenat). | One of many flies seen on washed-up seaweed on the beach |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| White Ibis | White Ibises | White Pelican, seen at the Aquarium pond from a great distance | Male Hooded Merganser, at the Aquarium pond |
Basin Trail 9/28/10
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Queen, dorsal view | Queen, ventral wing view | Long-legged fly (Hydrophorus genus) | Megachilid bee (note tiny fly on leftmost flower), one of many | Wharf crab |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Salt Marsh Pink (Sabatia stellaris) | Pennywort flowers | Firewheels | Tievine (Ipomoes cordatatriloba) |
 |
 |
 |
||
| Wildflower in a drainage ditch, possibly a Purple Bladderwort | Forked Bluecurls (Trichostema dichotomum).These wildflowers were common on the initial marshy stretch of the Basin Trail. | Bitter Sneezeweed |
Near Visitors Center 5/12/10
 |
 |
|||
| Firewheels | Maybe Daisy Fleabane, but the petals are suspiciously purple. |
Near Visitors Center 3/9/10
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
| Dung beetle (Copris fricator) | Hop Clover (Trifolium genus). This is a composite of maybe twenty typical pea family flowers. | A group of hop clover plants. These plants were ubiquitous in grass. | Maybe a Common Vetch |
 |
 |
 |
||
| Rock Slater (Ligia genus), a kind of crustacean. This one had wandered just off the sand. | Common Dandelion. You can see the reproductive parts of the many individual flowers. | Henbit |
Basin Trail 12/23/09
 |
||||
| Monarch |
Basin Trail 10/15/09
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Carolina Mantis, on boardwalk | Another Carolina Mantis, with prey | Gulf Fritillary | Common Buckeye | Question Mark |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| Milkweed Bug nymphs? They were moving very fast, looked like fire ants at first. | Milkweed Bug nymph with the beginnings of black wing pads | Two Milkweed Bug nymphs, representing two instars | Two Milkweed Bug nymphs on another plant, moving very little. More little black wing pads. |
 |
 |
 |
||
| Male Sand Fiddler Crab (Uca pugilator) | Monarch butterfly | Leafcutter bee (Megachilidae family) |
 |
 |
|||
| Carolina Saddlebags | Eastern Mud Turtle, about 2 inches long |
Near Visitors Center 3/8/09
 |
 |
 |
| Red-headed Woodpecker, near Visitor Center, 3/8 | ||
Outdoors trail, part of Aquarium 6/26/08
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Male Golden-winged Skimmer | Male Golden-winged Skimmer. Photo taken by Karl D. Gottschalk. | Four-spotted Pennant (Brachymesia gravida) | Blue Dasher | Young adult male Eastern Pondhawk |
 |
 |
 |
||
| Very young Yellowbelly Slider, sitting on top of a faded, upended Lotus flower. | Male Boat-tailed Grackle | Cuckoo Wasp |
Battery Buchanan Tour Stop 1/7/08
 |
 |
 |
||
| Red-winged Blackbird | European Starlings, non-breeding adults | Great Blue Heron |
Beach and Basin Trail 12/3/07
 |
 |
 |
| Tricolored Heron | Willet | Immature Great Black-backed Gull, according to Jeff Pippen. According to Sibley (2003), it was in its first winter. |
 |
 |
 |
| Fruit flies (Senopterina genus), Ft. Fisher Recreational Area, New Hanover County, NC, 6/22/06. Note the black triangles on the otherwise translucent wings. | Robber Fly (Efferia albibarbis), Fort Fisher Basin Trail, New Hanover County, NC, 6/22/06 | Crablike Spiny Orb Weaver, Fort Fisher Basin Trail, New Hanover County, NC, 6/22/06 |
 |
 |
 |
| Cicada nymph skin, discarded by adult cicada. Ft. Fisher Basin Trail, New Hanover County, NC, 6/22/06 | Female Yellow-and-Black Argiope, Fort Fisher, New Hanover County, NC, 6/22/06 | Red-banded Hairstreak, Ft. Fisher Recreational Area, New Hanover County, NC, 6/22/06 |
 |
 |
| Queen (Danaus gilippus), 8/27/03 | The same Queen |
 |
 |
| Male Needham's Skimmer (Libellula needhami), Fort Fisher, 7/16/04. About five of these red dragonflies showed up together at the beginning of the Basin Trail, but I've never seen any of this species before or since. Randy Emmitt and Josh Rose provided this ID. | This female Needham's Skinner was flying all around the Ft. Fisher Basin Trail on 10/18/05, but never landed. |
 |
 |
 |
| Great Egret (Ardea alba), Fort Fisher Basin Trail, NC, 9/29/04. | White Ibis, Fort Fisher State Recreational Area, New Hanover County, NC, 12/20/06 | American Bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus), Ft. Fisher State Recreational Area, New Hanover County, NC, 12/19/06. ID thanks to Ritch Lilly. |
 |
 |
 |
| 11/17/04 Fort Fisher Basin Trail, New Hanover County, NC | Ft. Fisher Basin Trail, 10/18/05. | Same place and day. |
© 2007-2011 Dorothy E. Pugh
Map of Fort Fisher Recreation Area:
The "A" shows the entrance to the parking lot for the main beach and the entrance to the Basin Trail. The Ramsgate Trail is also known as the Basin Trail. Fort Fisher Boulevard South leads to the Southport Ferry station and, at the very end, the Battery Buchanan Tour Stop with its famous oyster-gathering jetty. The beach on the east/right extends southward all the way to Bald Head Island; it is a very long distance!
