Image courtesy of Providence Parks Urban Wildlife Refuge Partnership, featuring the mural "Still Here" by Gaia.
Providence Birding
Next Outing: Sunday, April 27, 9-10 am
(Originally scheduled for April 26 but postponed due to rain)
Join naturalists from the Audubon Society of Rhode Island and the Providence Parks Urban Wildlife Refuge Partnership for a free GUIDED BIRDING in Providence on Sunday, April 27, 9-10 am. Celebrate National Go Birding Day with us at Neutaconkanut Hill.
Neutaconkanut is a beautiful green oasis in the city, home to a great variety of birds and other wildlife. It has the highest point in Providence, with a spectacular view of the city! This will be the first of our birding outings along the Providence Crosstown Trail.
We will meet at one of the northern entrances to Neutaconkanut Hill, at the intersection of Neutaconkanut Road and Jacqueline Drive. You can reach Neutaconkanut Road off the main road where Sunset Avenue in Providence meets Central Avenue in Johnston. For a Google map of this location, try this link.
We encourage you to walk, bicycle or carpool if you are able. The RIPTA bus route #19 stops near Neutaconkanut Park on Plainfield Pike, just down the hill from our meeting spot.
If you are carpooling or driving yourself, there is parking along Neutaconkanut Road and Jacqueline Drive. Please be sure to avoid blocking any driveways of our Neutaconkanut neighbors.
Our rain date will be Sunday, April 27.
Some recommendations:
- Dress for the weather and wear sturdy walking shoes.
- We encourage you to bring your own equipment, such as binoculars and field guides, but we will have some available to borrow as well.
- This time of year, we might find ticks along the edges of the path. If you wear long socks and tuck your pants into your socks, that makes it easier to spot ticks when we do a critter check at the end of the walk.
SPECIAL OPPORTUNITY:
We planned this birding outing to coincide with the Providence Area City Nature Challenge (CNC). The CNC is a global citizen science initiative to collect biodiversity data around the world, with a focus on urban areas. Anyone can participate and contribute to scientific research through uploading plant/wildlife observations from anywhere in Rhode Island to iNaturalist from April 25-April 28.
You can read more about the CNC here.
We will upload our birding list from Neutaconkanut to this challenge, but we invite you to participate on your own as well.
It's encouraged for folks to join the project on iNaturalist to receive important updates, however, participants do not need to join for their observations to count towards the CNC.
You can join the iNaturalist project here.
We acknowledge that these lands we will explore are the traditional, ancestral and contemporary lands of the Nahaganset, Wôpanâak, and Pokanoket nations. We are grateful to these local indigenous nations for being the first to steward these lands and waters, and for continuing that stewardship in the present and into the future.
These birding adventures began in 2018 as part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Urban Bird Treaty Program, and in 2019, Providence was designated a Bird Treaty City. To read more about the Urban Bird Treaty and other participating cities, visit the website and check out the story map.
