Highlights
-Active edge habitat between woodland and open fields
-Easy-to-access pond
-Rowlett Creek
Trail Length:
4.3 miles total
The Location
Breckenridge Park is a 417 acre park with paved walking trails that take you through a wooded area along Rowlett Creek, as well as through open mowed fields with scattered tree clusters and a 10 acre pond.
It is also a sports complex with baseball and soccer fields. This area can get very busy on weekends during the sports seasons, but otherwise the park is plenty quiet enough for a birding walk.
Birding Recommendations
The hardwood forest along the creek is good habitat for woodland species and can be quiet active during the winter and spring. Don’t rush through. Try to find birds traveling in mixed flocks, and you’ll be rewarded with a good species mix.
Points on the trail that place you right at the edge of the woods, where the open fields begin, can sometimes be hotspots of activity. Favoring parts of the trails that stay along this edge habitat can be a great choice, as you’ll have plenty of birds to see and songs to hear. This is of course assuming the right time of day (morning or evening).
The pond just south of the soccer fields usually seems to at least have something, although it’s a bit of a crapshoot. Herons and egrets are always possible, gulls and ducks in the winter, a possibility of shorebirds during spring and fall. As you walk around the pond, the small clusters of tall trees along the way can be good for passerines and woodpeckers.
