Big Lagoon State Park
SiteID: P1
Region: Panhandle
County: Escambia
Nearest City: Pensacola
Phone Number: 850-492-1595
Website: Big Lagoon State Park
Amenities: Restrooms, Entrance fee required, Good for beginners, Birding by boat, Birding by foot/hiking, Best time of day: All day, Recommended length of visit: a few hours, Camping
Habitats: Freshwater Swamp, Pines, Scrub, Marine/Bay, Salt Marsh
Description:
An ideal gateway for the Birding Trail! This site nicely represents the diversity of Panhandle habitats, all in the boundaries of a single park. The bayfront offers sandy expanses for wintering Black-bellied Plovers, Dunlin and Least Sandpipers, and winter ducks like Lesser Scaup, Redhead, Bufflehead and Red-breasted Mergansers can be seen diving in the bay from the East Beach tower. Common Loons call on foggy mornings in early spring (an uncommon occurrence in peninsular Florida), and a diversity of gulls and terns feed in area waters. Migrants like Yellow-billed Cuckoos arriving off the Gulf make landfall in the spring and feed on insects in hammocks in the campground and along the Yaupon and Long Pond Trails. Long Pond Trail skirts some freshwater wetlands, then stretches into the Cookie Trail leading along the north edge of the lagoon onto a scrubby point, peppered with pines favored by Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Northern Flickers and Brown-headed Nuthatches. Check with staff for information on birding events going on in the Panhandle; binoculars are also available for loan from the ranger station.
Directions: Due west of Pensacola, drive south on SR 173/Blue Angel Pkwy. and turn right (west) on SR 292/Sorrento Rd. After 2.7 mi., turn left (south) on CR 293/Bauer Rd; the entrance to the park is at the end of CR 293.
Open year round, 8 AM to sundown.
Best months to visit (in bold):
J F M A M J J A S O N D
