Meet Rex Rowan in the Target parking lot and carpool to Cedar Key, a quintessential Florida birding destination where birders can often view shorebirds over one shoulder and songbirds over the other. Participants may want to stay in Cedar Key for lunch.
Difficulty: 1 (trip within easy access to vehicle and/or level terrain one mile or less).
Meet trip leader Howard Adams at the trailhead of La Chua Trail on Camp Ranch Rd. La Chua is one of the area’s best birding hotspots and it supports a tremendous bird population including wading birds, waterfowl, raptors, warblers, and others. Resident species should be in the midst of nesting activities, and we may see a few migrants passing through. Entry fee for the State Park is $4 per vehicle.
Difficulty: 3 (may involve elevation change, uneven terrain, and/or walking distances greater than two miles).
Instead of the Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive (still closed due to continued flooding from Hurricane Irma), we’ll be birding the West Trail of the Newnans Lake State Forest, specifically the weedy sparrow field at the north end of the property. Recent trips have discovered remarkably large numbers of sparrows, up to nine species so far: Chipping, Field, Vesper, Savannah, Grasshopper, Song, Swamp, White-throated, and White-crowned. You can be sure that there are more to be found. If you want some practice with sparrows, this is the trip for you.
Directions: Drive east on University Avenue past Morningside Nature Center. About a mile past Morningside, State Road 26 curves left (while University continues straight to the shore of Newnans Lake). Stay on 26 for another mile and you’ll see the Newnans Lake State Forest sign on your LEFT. Make a left turn into the driveway and follow it to the parking corral. (There’s also a sign and a parking corral for the Pithlachocco Trailhead on the RIGHT side of the road. Don’t go there.) The official address is 1404 NE 55th Blvd, Gainesville, FL 32641, but check the map for the accurate location.
Trip Difficulty: 2 (We’ll walk a forest trail and grassy service road about a third of a mile to the field, then just amble around in the weeds looking for birds. Total walking distance for the day will probably be around a mile and a half or two miles).
Meet trip leader Felicia Lee at the trailhead of La Chua Trail on Camp Ranch Rd. La Chua is one of the area’s best birding hotspots and it supports a tremendous bird population including wading birds, waterfowl, raptors, warblers, and others.
Entry fee for the State Park is $4 per vehicle.
Difficulty: 3 (may involve elevation change, uneven terrain, and/or walking distances greater than two miles).
Meet trip leader John Hintermister at the Tag Agency on NW 34th St. just south of US-441 to carpool to the east coast. We’ll start at Fernandina Beach and work our way south. Possible Purple Sandpipers and scoters at Ft. Clinch State Park (entry fee $6 per vehicle). Then to Amelia Island for Red-throated Loon, scoters, Horned Grebes, and gulls. We’ll finish at Jacksonville’s Huguenot Park ($5 per vehicle) for shorebirds and other winter birds. Expect a full day of birding and some walking at various coastal sites.
Bring a lunch and warm clothes.
Difficulty: 3 (may involve elevation change, uneven terrain, and/or walking distances greater than two miles).
Meet trip leader Howard Adams at the trailhead of La Chua Trail on Camp Ranch Rd. La Chua is one of the area’s best birding hotspots and it supports a tremendous bird population including wading birds, waterfowl, raptors, warblers, and others. Resident species should be in the midst of nesting activities, and we may see a few migrants passing through.
Entry fee for the State Park is $4 per vehicle.
Difficulty: 3 (may involve elevation change, uneven terrain, and/or walking distances greater than two miles).
Meet trip leader Rex Rowan at the Tag Agency on NW 34th St. just south of US-441 to carpool to Jacksonville’s Huguenot Park, where we’ll look for shorebirds, gulls, and terns, all in their breeding plumage, and migrant songbirds, including Painted Buntings, at Ft. George Island. Admission to Huguenot is $5 per vehicle, $3 (exact change only) if we get there before 8 a.m.
Difficulty: 3 (may involve elevation change, uneven terrain, and/or walking distances greater than two miles).
Meet trip leader Rex Rowan at the parking lot of the Watermelon Pond WEA on SW 250th Street 2.0 miles south of SW 46th Avenue. We’ll be looking for open-country migrants like Western Kingbirds as well as winter arrivals like Savannah and Vesper Sparrows (and the season’s first Yellow-rumped Warblers!). Fall wildflowers ought to be blooming, and hopefully we’ll encounter a Fox Squirrel or two.
Difficulty: 3 (may involve elevation change, uneven terrain, and/or walking distances greater than two miles).
Meet trip leader Rex Rowan in the parking corral for the West Trail, on State Road 26 one mile north of the junction with County Road 329B. The 182-acre field on this property produced 13 species of sparrows last winter, including Henslow’s, Lincoln’s, and Clay-colored, and we’ll see how many of them we can find. Interesting western strays are also possible at this time of year.
Difficulty: 2 (may involve uneven terrain and/or walking distances one to two miles).
Meet field trip leader Barbara Shea in the SWP parking lot on Williston Road about ¾ of a mile east of US-441. This city park was created to improve water quality in Paynes Prairie and the Floridan Aquifer. It’s now a draw to a large variety of birds, with 237 species reported to eBird so far. We’ll look for ducks, American Bitterns, and other wetland birds.
Entry fee $5 per vehicle.
Difficulty: 2 (may involve uneven terrain and/or walking distances one to two miles).
For decades the fields north of Lake Apopka were cultivated for vegetables by the Duda family. About 20 years ago the St. Johns Water Management District bought those fields, and now they grow birds and other wildlife.
Join trip leader Howard Adams for a driving tour through the brushy wetlands of the Lake Apopka Restoration Area, one of the best birding areas in the state. Fulvous Whistling-Ducks are regular there, and rarities often show up; in 2017 a Fork-tailed Flycatcher was present for several months.
Meet in the Target parking lot on Archer Road just east of I-75.
Difficulty: 1 (trip within easy access of vehicle and/or level terrain one mile or less).
Meet trip leader Chris Burney at Powers Park on Hawthorne Rd. to carpool to the Alachua Conservation Trust’s 500-acre Prairie Creek Preserve. The Preserve encompasses a variety of uplands and lowlands, and we’ll sample several of them in search of sparrows and winter feeding flocks. Wear rubber boots or old shoes you don’t mind getting wet, as the trail can be soggy or even flooded.
Difficulty: 2 (may involve uneven terrain and/or walking distances one to two miles).
Meet trip leader Rex Rowan in the parking corral for the West Trail on State Road 26 one mile north of the junction with County Road 329B. The 182-acre field on this property produced 13 species of sparrows last winter, including Henslow’s, Lincoln’s, and Clay-colored, and we’ll see how many of them we can find.
Difficulty: 2 (Walking over uneven ground or distances of 1-2 miles.)
Meet trip leader Bubba Scales in the Publix parking lot at SW 34th St. and Williston Rd. to carpool. The 6,577-acre Emeralda Marsh in northern Lake County, at the headwaters of the Ocklawaha River, is a National Natural Landmark. It is also a prime winter-birding location, with extensive tracts of marsh and woodland accessible by a 3.5-mile Interpretive Drive. We should see a profusion of ducks, waders, raptors, Sandhill Cranes, Limpkins, sparrows, and warblers.
Difficulty: 1 (trip within easy access of vehicle and/or level terrain one mile or less).
Meet trip leader Felicia Lee at the parking area beside the ranger/pay station at the park entrance off US-441 just north of Micanopy. The woods should be green with new leaves, spring wildflowers should be blooming, and birds should be singing.
Main Entrance fees:
- $6 per vehicle, limit 2-8 people per vehicle
- $4 Single Occupant Vehicle
- $2 Pedestrians, bicyclists, extra passengers, passengers in vehicle with holder of Annual Individual Entrance Pass
Difficulty: 2 (may involve uneven terrain one to two miles).
Meet trip leader Geoff Parks in the MNC parking lot for a visit to one of Gainesville’s premier nature parks featuring over six miles of trails through sandhills, flatwoods, cypress domes, and beautifully-restored native longleaf pine and wiregrass habitat. Morningside also features a working 19th-century farm, a bird blind, and a diverse array of wildlife that thrives in this unique environment.
Difficulty: 2 (may involve uneven terrain one to two miles).
*The Conservation Lands Educational Program (CLEP) is designed to bring attention to local land conservation efforts. These trips are conducted on properties purchased to protect natural resources and will be led by a representative of the agency in charge, who will discuss ecological features and history. CLEP trips will be educational experiences, so the emphasis will be on much more than birding.
Meet trip leader Rex Rowan in the Publix parking lot at SW 34th St. and Williston Rd. Come and admire the longleaf sandhills and scrub in this marvelous 383,000-acre remnant of the original Florida, while we search for Florida Scrub-Jay, Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Bachman’s Sparrow, and other specialty birds.
Difficulty: 2 (may involve uneven terrain one to two miles).
Meet trip leader Matt Bruce at Kate’s Fish Camp on Hawthorne Rd. at Prairie Creek. Going east on Hawthorne Rd., drive past Powers Park and 0.7 mile later, just before the bridge, turn left into Kate’s. If you’ve got a canoe or kayak, bring it ($5 launching fee); if you don’t, Kate’s has a limited number you can rent (one-person kayak $15, canoe $20).
Email Matt at mattbrucefl@gmail.com if you plan to rent. Depending on the water levels, we’ll paddle along the lakeshore and/or down Prairie Creek, keeping an eye out for Prothonotary Warblers, Limpkins, and other swamp-loving birds.
Difficulty: 3 (may involve elevation change, uneven terrain, and/or walking distances greater than two miles).
Bell Ridge is a 720-acre property with a 3.1-mile trail winding through what has been described as “one of the highest quality longleaf pine sandhill forest tracts in Florida.”
Join trip leader Deena Mickelson in the parking lot of the Publix at NW 53rd Ave. and NW 43rd St. to carpool. We’ll be looking for Summer Tanagers, Bachman’s Sparrows, Red-headed Woodpeckers, American Kestrels, and other longleaf-savannah species.
Difficulty: 3 (may involve elevation change, uneven terrain, and/or walking distances greater than two miles).
Sorry, but the field trip to Green Acres Nature Park has been canceled.