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It’s In Your Nature: Assateague Island a nature hot spot worth visiting

Published July 11. 2026 09:02AM

Over the next few months, I’d like to highlight a few nature areas that I’ve enjoyed.

You can probably guess that these locales include some great birding areas.

I’ll begin with maybe my favorite go-to spot: Assateague Island. Yes, it’s not in our backyard, but from most places in Carbon County you are looking at about a four-hour drive. If you vacation in Ocean City, Maryland, you are only about a 15-minute drive away.

Assateague Island is one of the barrier islands up and down the Eastern Coast of the United States. Up until 1962, Assateague Island was actually part of the same barrier island that hosts Ocean City. A nor’easter stalled for a few days offshore and it breached the island, so now OC is separated.

Assateague Island is mostly National Park Service land. Some of the northern end is Assateague Island State Park managed by the State of Maryland.

The good news for me, other nature lovers and campers is that the same powerful storm that cut the island in two also wiped out an aggressive plan to have vacation homes built across the island.

The widespread damage ceased the plans, and the homesite dreams of developers were lost. Fortunately, some conservation-minded people saw a better way to use the island and it became Assateague Island National Seashore.

My family, in 1985, began camping at the state park, and the island’s varied wildlife got me hooked. I could take a before-sunrise jog north along the beach and watch dolphins breaching just offshore while laughing gulls, common and least terns dove into the surf for small fish. Sanderlings, willets and rare piping plovers raced each receding wave to find crustaceans and crustacean eggs in the wet sand.

But you don’t have to jog to find birds.

The national seashore has paved bike paths beside the roads and the multiple spits of land that jut into the bay. Here you can find terrestrial mammals and, of course, a great variety of birds in the loblolly pines and sandy tolerant shrubs and trees. I can’t commit that this is my all-time favorite birding area, but it just might be.

Depending on the season, you can see warblers, swallows, raptors, and thrilling to me, sometimes hundreds of great and snowy egrets, tri-colored and little blue herons, and even a few duck species/

If you try a birding trip here in May, smaller birds may dominate. If you only decide to try birding here once, I would recommend the last week or two of September. I wouldn’t steer you wrong; it has varied bird life, wild ponies, white-tailed deer, red foxes and even introduced sika deer. Go for it ….

Test Your Outdoor Knowledge: True or False: Assateague and Chincoteague Island are one and the same.

Last Week’s Trivia Answer: Hawk Mountain records indicated that in the autumn of 1975 only 19 bald eagles flew south past the lookout. What a wonderful rebound the eagles have made.

Nature note: A friend and reader of this column noted the following: Jeff Gilbert of Washington Township sent a video of a whitetail doe with triplet fawns. I have only seen this once. Maybe if one of you have had the same experience, drop me a note. Thanks …

Email Barry Reed at breed71@gmail.com

Assateague Island is 37 miles long, 23 of which are in the State of Maryland. The National Park Service manages all of the island except for the small section dedicated to Assateague Island State Park. A great variety of habitats make this an ideal nature spot. BARRY REED/SPECIAL TO THE TIMES NEWS
The National Park Service recently renovated its elevated boardwalks, allowing you to walk above the salt marsh and get close to blue crabs feeding below you; egrets, herons and willets feeding around you; and sometimes quite a few mosquitoes feeding on you. BARRY REED/SPECIAL TO THE TIMES NEWS
At various locations, accurate and informative signs help you learn some history as well as descriptions of what wildlife is found around you.
If you are alert and can quietly approach some of the bay’s hidden coves, you may find black crowned night herons stalking small fish for their morning meal.
I find beauty in many places. Here a skeleton of a tree hosts a group of great egrets resting after feeding in the island’s salt marshes.
A little smaller than our local great blue heron, tri-colored herons feed and nest in the salt marsh areas of the island.
Just after crossing the Verrazano Bridge over the bay, especially in autumn, look for sometimes hundreds of birds feeding in the marshes. Here great and snowy egrets, little blue and tri-colored herons, glossy and white ibises, yellow legs and many gulls feast as the tide ebbs and reveals shallower pools to catch minnows.
Ah, that’s better. A little blue heron scratches to possibly remove a pest. An early morning walk will almost insure that you will see dozens of the 320 bird species that have been recorded at the national seashore.
On the sandy shores of the beach and bays you may find a semipalmated plover as well as about a half-dozen more plover species.
Assateague is home to feral horses. Look for them in the salt marsh, along the road as you enter the park, grazing in the campgrounds, and even walking on the quiet beach. The National Park Service had to manage the herd’s size to maintain the delicate balance in the island’s habitats.
In fall, black skimmers may pause on the beach as they wing their way southward for the winter months.
Nesting on the island, American oystercatchers probe beach and bay shores for mollusks to break open for their grub.
Killdeer that nest there can often be found feeding in the short grasses near parking lots or on the bay shores.
Yellow-breasted chats, our largest warbler species, can be found in the brushy habitats covering Assateague Island.
Tags:
Barry Reed, Environment