Meet trip leader Rex Rowan at the Tag Agency (on NW 34th St. just south of US-441) and carpool to northern Gilchrist County to explore some of the most beautiful sandhills in North Florida. The resident breeding birds should be singing and there should be plenty of wildflowers to look at. This is the first AAS field trip to this location.
Difficulty: 2 (may involve uneven terrain one to two miles).
Join us for a walk through one of the better fall-warbler spots in the county. Poe Springs is a 201-acre county park located on the banks of the Santa Fe River. It’s a 45-minute drive to get there, but it’s worth it, especially since the county has dropped the entry fee. It can be a bit muddy in places, so waterproof footwear or old shoes are recommended, and remember your bug repellent.
Meet Mike Manetz at the Tag Agency (NW 34th St. just south of US-441) to carpool.
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 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 Michael Drummond at the Sunoco gas station at the flashing light in Micanopy on US-441 and carpool to Barr Hammock. Barr Hammock forms a land bridge between Ledwith and Levy Prairies, and is a county jewel that provides habitat for a wide diversity of upland and wetland species. We should see some migrant birds on this walk, but we’ll be looking at everything – trees, wildflowers, insects, reptiles, whatever we find.
Difficulty: 2 (may involve uneven terrain one to two miles).
Meet trip leader Adam Kent at the Tag Agency (NW 34th Street just south of US-441) to carpool. Entry fee $4 per vehicle. We’ll cover a variety of habitats in this walk, including marsh, field, deciduous forest, and Cellon Creek bottomlands. This is very near the peak of migration for warblers, thrushes, cuckoos, tanagers, and buntings.
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 (NW 34th St. just south of US-441) and carpool to the Big Bend Wildlife Management Area for a full day of birding. The first destination will be the Road to Nowhere, a 12-mile road that traverses salt marsh and coastal hammocks. A large diversity of birds can often be seen along this remote road. The next stop will be Hagens Cove where shorebirds, wading birds (including Reddish Egrets), and migrant landbirds can all be observed. Bring water, bug repellent, and lunch
Difficulty: 2 (may involve uneven terrain one to two miles).
Join trip leader Dotty Robbins in the Target parking lot on Archer Rd. at 12:30 p.m. and then drive to Frank Rendon Park in Daytona Beach Shores. We’ll meet Michael Brothers of the Marine Science Center at 3:30 to stroll the beach and enjoy the spectacle of the many thousands of gulls that amass there. Michael will share his gull expertise at our program on February 7th, and this will be an opportunity to practice those identification tips.
Difficulty: 2 (may involve uneven terrain one to two miles)
Meet trip leader Mike Manetz in the parking lot at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens for a stroll through a beautiful 62-acre park marked by gorgeous gardens (including butterfly and hummingbird gardens), sinkholes, a man-made watercourse, and hardwood hammocks that host a wide variety of bird life. What can be more beautiful than springtime in the Gardens? Participants will be admitted to the park for half price ($4), but MUST be on time to get the group rate.
Difficulty: 2 (may involve uneven terrain one to two miles).
Peregrine Falcons migrate down the Atlantic Coast in fall, usually peaking in early October.
Meet trip leader John Hintermister at the Tag Agency and carpool to the hawk-watching platform at the north end of the park in hopes of seeing Peregrines. During the second half of the morning we’ll walk a woodland trail in search of fall warblers, tanagers, grosbeaks, and thrushes. Entry fee $3 per vehicle. Bring water and bug repellent. Lunch is at Cap’s on the Inland Waterway.
Difficulty: 2 (may involve uneven terrain one to two miles).
Web sites for GTM NERR: http://www.gtmnerr.org and http://www.dep.state.fl.us/coastal/sites/gtm/
Meet trip leader Trina Anderson in the parking lot at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens for a stroll through a beautiful 62-acre park marked by gorgeous gardens (including butterfly and hummingbird gardens), sinkholes, a man-made watercourse, and hardwood hammocks that host a wide variety of bird life. Participants will be admitted to the park for half price ($4), but MUST be on time to get the group rate.
Difficulty: 2 (may involve uneven terrain one to two miles).
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).