While almost all wildlife refuges are interesting throughout the year, some were established for specific, seasonal reasons and, thus, are especially rewarding during those months. Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge, in eastern North Carolina, provides an excellent example.
Established in 1934 to protect wetland habitat for migrant and wintering waterfowl, this Refuge, centered on the State's largest natural lake, attracts huge flocks of geese, ducks and tundra swans from late autumn through early spring. The preserve is a mosaic of crop fields, marsh, cypress swamps, pine-hardwood forest and the shallow, 40,000-acre lake. Tundra swans are certainly the highlight for most birders; after a summer in the Arctic, an average of 30,000 swans winter at Mattamuskeet. Canada geese, snow geese, Ross' geese, white-fronted geese and a large variety of ducks also rest and feed at the refuge, patrolled by bald eagles and peregrine falcons that move south with these flocks. Resident mammals include deer, bobcats, gray fox and river otters; an occasional red wolf (reintro-duced to this region) or black bear may also be seen.
Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge is in Hyde County on the north side of Pamlico Sound, approximately 8 miles east of Swan Quarter, North Carolina.
