The Toms Cove Visitor Center offers exhibits and maps and other publications. Although birds abound throughout Assateague, birders usually find more opportunities in the Virginia portion of the island. In summer, the refuge's fresh-water impoundments combine with marshes all along Assateague to host a variety of herons, egrets. Terns dive for fish and gulls and sandpipers work the beaches and mudflats. Warblers and other passerine species are found in shrub thickets and pine forests.
Late summer brings migrating shorebirds and peregrine falcons to the island.
Thousands of waterfowl winter here, especially snow geese, black ducks, mallards, and pintails. Scoters, oldsquaws, and other sea ducks are sometimes seen in Toms Cove or Assateague Channel. Obtain a bird checklist from any of the island's visitor centers. The Piping plover, a threatened species, nests at Assateague. The herds are separated by a fence at the boundary between Maryland and Virginia.