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Chinsegut Wildlife & Environmental Area - Chinsegut WEA |
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Written by Sandra Friend
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Page 3 of 4
 To get to the Nature Center Tract, you can hike there (via the Prairie to Pines Connector) or drive to one of two trailheads. The Nature Center trailhead has limited hours, but the Prairie to Pines Trailhead along Snow Memorial Highway is open all the time. I drove to the nature center and headed down along the 2-mile Nature Center Loop, an interpretive trail with benches along the way. The trail circles May’s Prairie, a large open prairie, and is primary a forest road through a variety of habitats, including sandhill and hardwood hammock. Many of the pines along the trail have large catfaces, sometimes on both sides of the tree. The gem of this walk is the 0.3-mile Cypress Walk, a connector at the north end of the prairie. It’s a boardwalk that winds through a cypress swamp, with a spur to an observation deck along the prairie’s edge, and a trail that continues through lush hammocks dense with saw palmetto and ferns. Watch for the side trail to a sinkhole!
The tract is a birder’s delight. We saw at least two different pileated woodpeckers, and could hear sandhill cranes in the distance. The volunteer caretaking the nature center said sandhill cranes commonly gather in flocks here. Also, for a short historic stroll adjoining the nature center, an interpretive loop circles the remains of the late 1800s Bishop Homestead. There are restrooms and picnic tables at the nature center, which is only open Friday and Saturday, 8 AM – 2 PM.
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