Head of blue, back of green, shoulders like a slice of lemon, belly as red as a cherry sucker. Let’s be honest: The painted bunting looks like it was colored by a third grader. Often called the most beautiful bird in North America — indeed, its nickname, the “nonpareil,” means “without equal” — the painted bunting breeds in tangled maritime forests and dense coastal shrublands. It adds a vibrant splash of color to the green-gray woods of the summer maritime forest. The species is in decline, and citizen-scientists with the UNC Wilmington-based Painted Bunting Observer Team banded the eastern population of buntings to figure out why sightings of these flying rainbows continue to be so rare.
Feature image: Bands on a painted bunting’s legs can tell a bird’s age, where it’s from, and when it was banded. This guy is 5 years old, and was banded on June 5, 2012, about 100 miles southwest of where he was photographed.
To commemorate our 90th anniversary, we’ve compiled a time line that highlights the stories, contributors, and themes that have shaped this magazine — and your view of the Old North State — using nine decades of our own words.
From its northernmost point in Corolla to its southern terminus on Cedar Island, this scenic byway — bound between sound and sea — links the islands and communities of the Outer Banks.
Us? An icon? Well, after 90 years and more than 2,000 issues celebrating North Carolina from mountains to coast, we hope you’ll agree that we’ve earned the title.
After nearly a century — or just a couple of years — these seafood restaurants have become coastal icons, the places we know, love, and return to again and again.
