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| A great blue heron along the Great Marsh Trail. NPS photo. |
Among the top park trails for birding are:
• Cowles Bog Trail – The trail, which traverses the edge of woodlands and marshes while heading through an oak savanna, was named a globally significant Important Bird Area. Its wetlands are a major nesting area for American bittern, American black duck., black-crowned night heron, little blue heron, marsh wren, sandhill crane, and Virginia rail. Other rare species that can spotted along the trail are the American woodcock, solitary sandpiper, rusty blackbird, sedge wren, and whip-poor-will.
• Great Marsh Trail – Day hikers can see a number of the famous birds drawn to the national park by hiking the 1.26-miles round trip Great Marsh Trail. Thanks to a recent restoration of the wetlands, migratory birds – including sandhill cranes and great blue herons – stop over there every spring and autumn. After only a few steps on the trail, you’ll be immediately impressed by the array of bird life in the Great Marsh. Coots, mallards, wood ducks and geese are abundant here. During the annual migrations, wading birds such as herons and egrets stalk the shorelines. Kingfishers, red-winged blackbirds, tree swallows, and warblers also are abundant.
• Heron Rookery Trail – For some six decades, more than a hundred great blue heron nests could be found in the tall sycamores along this 3.3-miles round trip trail at 600 East south of 1350 North. Though the herons have since abandoned the site, plenty of other birds can be spotted on this wooded portion of the East Arm Little Calumet River. Among them are kingfishers, kinglets, a number of migrating and nesting warbler species, woodpeckers and wood thrushes.
• West Beach Trail – Several migratory birds rarely seen in Indiana can be spotted on the West Beach Trail, which passes Long Lake and a Lake Michigan beach. An Important Bird Area, in late fall and winter, the common redpoll, long-eared owl and red crossbill can be spotted. The common loon and red-breasted merganser, red-throated loon, and western grebe also can be spotted here. Many raptors such as bald eagles, northern harriers, peregrine falcon, red-shouldered and sharp-shinned hawks also stop over here. Also keep an eye out for the hairy woodpecker. At the Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk on West Beach’s east end, spring hawk flights over the high dunes are impressive, and during March and April, at the migration’s peak, up to 300 bird species can be seen on any given day.
