Southern Road Trips for Bird and Wildlife Watchers

• Loft Mountain Campground: Migratory birds depend on key stopover habitats to rest and refuel—and so do us road-trippers. My go-to Shenandoah campground offers outstanding birdwatching spring through fall. See and hear American redstarts, black-and-white warblers, and many other migratory songbirds from your wooded campsite and adjacent Appalachian Trail.
• Grandfather Mountain State Park: “Grandfather Mountain is home to more rare plant and animal species than any mountain east of the Rockies,” according to the National Park Service.
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Black bears may ramble over 100 miles in search of food. (I can relate.) With the nation’s densest population, America’s most-visited national park offers decent odds for a sighting. Elk are more predictable, venturing into open meadows around dawn and before sunset to graze. As dusk approaches, don’t forget to look up for bats!

• Brownsville Preserve: Home to TNC’s Volgenau Virginia Coast Reserve and the Cummings Birding and Wildlife Trail, Brownsville offers diverse habitat for a variety of migratory songbirds, waterbirds and raptors. A meadow adjacent to the office attracts diverse pollinators, including migrating monarch butterflies.
• Virginia Beach: This resort town just might be the Southern Atlantic’s premier site for viewing humpback whales during their winter migration downcoast from the Bay of Fundy. Multiple outfitters offer whale-watching and other eco-tours. Whales, especially the endangered North American right whale, are a top marine-conservation priority for TNC.
• Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge (VA/NC): From tiny warblers to muscle-bound black bears, a stunning variety of wildlife prowls Great Dismal’s 113,000 acres of woods and peatland swamps. TNC helped establish this critical refuge in 1973.
• Huntington Beach State Park (SC): As a teenager, I certainly felt the “call of the wild” from the Grand Strand. These days, it’s Huntington that calls loudest to me and keeps me coming back to the unspoiled beach, marshes and maritime forest of this birding destination. As you cross the entrance causeway, keep an eye out for basking alligators.

• Space Coast: Protecting water quality in the busy Indian River Lagoon is a high priority for TNC in Florida. That’s what took me to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, where I spotted my first roseate spoonbills and manatees. Black Point Wildlife Drive is a must-do seven-mile loop.
• Blowing Rocks Preserve: Blowing Rocks features diverse habitats for myriad birds and wildlife, including rare green, loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles. Nearby, Jonathan Dickinson State Park offers camping, hiking and exceptional bird-watching.
• Everglades National Park: One of our planet’s unique ecosystems, the Florida Everglades belong on every wildlife watcher’s must-visit list. In addition to world-class bird watching, the Everglades offer a rare opportunity to see both American alligators and crocodiles.  
• Crystal River: This area north of Tampa bills itself the “Manatee Capital of the World,” with good reason. Winter is prime time to visit, as manatees leave colder open waters to congregate in warm-water springs and spring-fed rivers—many of which are protected within state parks and the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge.

• St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge (Florida): TNC has helped add land to this coastal refuge due south of Tallahassee. Monarch butterflies mass here in the fall, usually around October, when they are tagged before their perilous flight across the Gulf. 
• Gulf Islands (Alabama): The Lower Perdido Islands and Dauphin Island Bird Sanctuaries flank the east and west sides, respectively, of Mobile Bay. These are just two of the vital nearshore islands that serve as jumping-off points in spring and landing zones in fall for hundreds of migratory bird species crossing the Gulf.
• Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge: Migratory sandhill cranes draw wildlife watchers by the thousands to numerous stopover sites (and related festivals) across the country. But for a chance to see the Mississippi sandhill crane, a critically endangered subspecies, you must visit this Gulf Coast wildlife refuge. Roughly 200 of the four-foot-tall living dinosaurs stalk the refuge’s primeval wet pine savanna.
• Grand Isle (Louisiana): The state’s lone inhabited barrier island hosts beachgoing tourists and one of the world’s most spectacular natural phenomena. During autumn “fall outs,” hundreds or sometimes thousands of migratory songbirds, including 35 different warblers, appear to fall from the sky. Exhausted from crossing the Gulf, they depend on the rare maritime forests of Lafitte Woods Preserve to rest and refuel. In the spring, TNC sponsors the annual Grand Isle Migratory Bird Festival.

• Nashville: While Music City is best known for, well, you know, the area boasts a remarkable abundance of parks and natural areas. Visit during summer and you may witness a true natural spectacle: thousands of migratory purple martins gathering nightly to roost.
• Duck River (Tennessee): Among the numerous places along the Trace where you can stop to go fishing, canoeing or kayaking, the Duck stands out. As you float peacefully along, the waters beneath you teem with a greater diversity of fishes and freshwater mussels than almost anywhere else in North America. Only the Clinch River system a few hours to the east comes close.

A natural place to start is your closest national forest. The Nature Conservancy works closely with the U.S. Forest Service across the South and the country, as healthy national forests are essential to maintaining habitat corridors for wide-ranging wildlife.

National forests are vital places for nomadic humans, too. Many forest roads are accessible to virtually any vehicle, while offering abundant opportunities along the way for hiking, cycling, camping and, of course, wildlife viewing.

My work as a conservationist began in South Carolina’s Sumter National Forest, which remains a favorite recreational destination. And from my home in Virginia, a 60- to 90-minute drive will take me to one of many entry points into the George Washington & Jefferson National Forests. Once there, a network of gravel roads and hiking-biking trails provides access to nearly 2 million acres of forested public lands and endless opportunities to observe wildlife.

The new Virginia Adventure Trail connects scenic backroads with many of the best and most accessible forest roads. This 675-mile overland route runs from Damascus, Virginia, north to the West Virginia line near Fulks Run.

Stretching from Upstate South Carolina to the Alabama line, the 390-mile Georgia Traverse begins near one of my favorite places on Earth: Burrells Ford on the Wild and Scenic Chattooga River.

Which presents a problem: getting underway. You could while away hours or days here—as I have—watching and listening to migratory songbirds, hiking to waterfalls, and falling asleep to the sound of flowing water.

Sumter National Forest’s Cherry Hill and Burrells Ford campgrounds are excellent staging options before setting off on this scenic and challenging overland route to Alabama.