Ducks Unlimited’s mission is to conserve wetlands and other crucial habitats that support healthy populations of waterfowl and other wildlife, which is why many of the DU projects delivered on public lands are well worth a visit for those who appreciate the wonders of nature. At many of these sites, you can see DU’s work firsthand and enjoy various amenities, recreational activities, and events. Some DU projects attract tens of thousands of people annually. Following are a half-dozen destinations that would make outstanding stops on any DU member’s travel itinerary. They’re all within 90 minutes of a major city, are open year-round, and host impressive numbers of waterfowl and other wildlife.
Gray Lodge Wildlife Area
Gridley, California
Gray Lodge is one of California’s most popular wildlife areas, especially in winter. More than 1 million waterfowl gather here from November through February, highlighted by skies filled with the sights and sounds of thousands of snow geese. White-fronted geese and Ross’s geese are here in abundance too, as are other waterfowl, including northern pintails, American wigeon, gadwalls, and mallards. Other seasonal visitors include red-tailed hawks, bald eagles, sandhill cranes, black-crowned night herons, and pied-billed grebes. Beavers, otters, muskrats, and black-tailed deer often make an appearance as well.
One of the best ways to see the refuge’s diverse bird life is via the three-mile auto tour loop. The road cuts through the center of Gray Lodge’s designated viewing area, a sanctuary that spans roughly 1,725 acres. People can enjoy excellent wildlife viewing right from their vehicles as they drive along the loop. Extensive managed ponds dotted with loafing islands flank both sides of the road, and birds can be observed at close ranges. Several turnouts also offer places to pull over and linger for a closer look. At dusk, visitors can witness Gray Lodge’s famous “night flight,” as waves of waterfowl lift off the ponds and head out for an evening feed.
DU Connection
Ducks Unlimited has spent decades improving Gray Lodge’s wetland management infrastructure by installing new water-control structures and pumps, renovating water-conveyance channels, and recontouring wetlands. DU also recently helped make the auto loop safer and more user-friendly by widening the roadway, constructing gentler slopes along portions of the route to eliminate a number of areas with steep drop-offs, adding additional turnouts along the drive, and constructing loafing islands in the adjacent ponds to improve habitat and to enhance wildlife-viewing opportunities.
Total Area: 9,200 acres
Annual Visitors: 80,000
Best Time to Visit: Winter
Amenities:
- Bicycle and foot paths
- Interpretive trail
- Observation platforms and blinds
- Three-mile auto tour loop
Platte River Crane Trust Projects
Wood River, Nebraska
Each spring, more than 1 million sandhill cranes—some 80 percent of the global population—flock to the Central Platte River to rest and refuel as they migrate north. The birds congregate on the braided river’s sandbars, backwater channels, and sloughs and make forays to feed in nearby agricultural fields. Sandhill cranes aren’t the only winged visitors drawn to this stretch of the Platte River—endangered whooping cranes routinely make an appearance, and millions of ducks, geese, and swans also touch down here en route to their breeding grounds. Northern pintails, mallards, American green-winged teal, and other dabblers are common visitors, as are Canada geese, snow geese, and white-fronted geese.
Not surprisingly, thousands of wildlife enthusiasts descend on this area each spring to witness what Dr. Jane Goodall called “one of the most spectacular events in the natural world.” Many do their crane watching with Crane Trust—a local conservation organization that works year-round as a steward of nearly 10,000 acres along an uninterrupted seven-mile stretch of the Platte River.
Every March, Crane Trust hosts a variety of crane-viewing experiences from its Nature and Visitor Center, riverfront blinds, and two footbridges that span the Platte River. Moreover, Crane Trust offers guided driving tours that allow visitors to observe cranes as they feed and perform their courtship dances in surrounding agricultural fields and wetlands. Visitors can also grab maps for a self-guided driving tour complete with designated pull-offs for watching cranes and other birds.
DU Connection
People who take the driving tour pass by many of the 40-plus projects that DU has helped deliver in this region. Here, both sides of the Platte River are now protected by DU, Crane Trust, and a constellation of other public and private partners collaboratively working to protect the landscape. These protection efforts, together with DU’s restoration expertise on the north bank of the Platte, are strengthening a critical network of habitats essential for migrating waterfowl, songbirds, sandhill cranes, whooping cranes, and countless other species.
These projects include a number of conservation easements and acquisitions secured by DU and Crane Trust. For example, the two organizations acquired a 165-acre parcel along the Platte River that will provide habitat for cranes and other waterbirds as well as extra grazing for a managed bison herd. The parcel is named the Douglas and Allison Frey Tract in honor of the Frey family’s role in funding its acquisition. Doug Frey, a longtime DU board member and Wetlands America Trust Trustee, is originally from Nebraska and is a staunch supporter of both DU and Crane Trust.
The Frey family also spearheaded the recent acquisition of the Back-Bar Farm, spanning 477 acres of crucial habitat, which is also along the Platte River. Permanent protection of this property, which staff describe as a project with unique legal and physiographic attributes, is an extraordinary example of what can be achieved by DU volunteers and staff working in partnership with local conservation partners. In addition to the Frey family, support for this project was provided by the Lauritzen family, the Miles family, Valmont Industries, the Lindsing family, other DU and Crane Trust donors, and the North American Wetlands Conservation Act.
Total Area: 10,000 acres
Annual Visitors: 60,000
Best Time to Visit: March
Amenities:
- 10 miles of trails
- Observation tower
- Crane viewing tours
- Visitor center
L.H. Barkhausen Waterfowl Preserve
Suamico, Wisconsin
Wisconsin’s Green Bay once contained the largest complex of coastal wetlands on Lake Michigan. Unfortunately, 70 percent of the wetlands along the lake’s western shore have disappeared. Conserving what remains of this vital habitat is the mission of the L.H. Barkhausen Waterfowl Preserve.
This preserve is named for Ducks Unlimited’s third president, Louis Henry Barkhausen. He gifted roughly 500 acres of land that he had managed for waterfowl hunting to the Brown County Parks Department in 1955 with the stipulation that it be maintained as a waterfowl refuge. The preserve has almost doubled in size since its founding and features a diverse landscape, including open water, marsh, wet meadows, swamps, uplands, prairie, and hardwood forest. During the fall and spring migrations, the area draws large numbers of waterfowl such as mallards, American green-winged teal, wood ducks, redheads, northern pintails, canvasbacks, and American black ducks.
Visitors who come to watch migrating waterfowl in early spring are treated to a bonus spectacle: the arrival of spawning northern pike, an iconic species that is also threatened by wetland loss. These large predatory fish make their way from Green Bay into local ditches that are flooded in spring, and they travel—sometimes as far as 20 miles—in search of marshes where they can spawn. Finding suitable habitat has become increasingly difficult due to wetland loss, but fortunately the fish can find it at the preserve, where the marsh is managed for both waterfowl and spawning northern pike. Trails take visitors right up to the marsh and connecting waterways for a rare close-up look at this dramatic phenomenon.
DU Connection
DU has partnered with Brown County for over a dozen years to optimize water-management infrastructure throughout the preserve. DU also helped restore wild rice and was involved in developing the county’s “Wild Rice in the Classroom” curriculum. In 2013, DU restored a northern pike spawning marsh on the preserve with financial assistance from the Green Bay Packers.
Total Area: 1,000 acres
Annual Visitors: 150,000
Peak Wildlife Viewing: Spring and fall
Amenities:
- Nine miles of trails
- Marsh boardwalk
- Visitor center
Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge
Bell City, Louisiana
Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge is located in a unique transition zone from coastal marsh to coastal prairie. It was the first federal refuge created after the inception of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan and hosts migrating and wintering waterfowl from both the Mississippi and Central Flyways. Common wintering waterfowl include snow geese, white-fronted geese, northern pintails, blue-winged teal, American green-winged teal, mallards, gadwalls, northern shovelers, and ring-necked ducks. Other common waterbirds include roseate spoonbills, crested caracaras, and various species of herons, egrets, and ibis.
Pintail Wildlife Drive is a highlight for visitors to the refuge. This gravel road runs along the levee system, passing directly through nearly 400 acres of coastal marsh. The loop features interpretive signs as well as a connecting half-mile boardwalk that leads into the marsh. The boardwalk includes a viewing platform and interpretive station and gives people a unique opportunity to see the marsh up-close without having to deal with the muddy conditions that are so typical of this habitat in southwest Louisiana.
The drive also provides a unique chance to observe ducks and geese as they gather on an adjacent managed grit site. This feature is very attractive to wintering waterfowl, as opportunities to acquire grit for digestion are very limited in this region. It’s not unusual to see 10,000 to 15,000 snow geese packed into the grit site on a winter afternoon. Alligators are also a common sight along the drive year-round.
DU Connection
Ducks Unlimited has been active at Cameron Prairie since the 1990s, partnering with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to make a variety of improvements, ranging from upgrading the levee system (allowing for construction of Pintail Wildlife Drive); restoring old rice fields to moist-soil habitat; installing irrigation pipelines and converting old diesel power units on water pumps to electric; and installing and upgrading water-control infrastructure throughout the refuge. A multi-phase restoration effort is currently under way thanks to support from Chevron, Cameron, LNG, Concordia Bank & Trust, Dow, Phillips 66, Sempra Infrastructure, Williams, and individual Gulf Coast Initiative sponsors.
Total Area: 9,600 acres
Annual Visitors: 100,000
Peak Wildlife Viewing: Winter
Amenities:
- Boardwalk with educational displays
- Three-mile wildlife drive
- Kayaking and canoeing
- Visitor center
Oak Hammock Marsh Wildlife Management Area
Stonewall, Manitoba
Located at the intersection of three migration flyways, Oak Hammock is a key stopover for waterfowl in spring and fall. During peak migration, more than 200,000 waterfowl may be found here on any given day. Canada geese, cackling geese, snow geese, Ross’s geese, and white-fronted geese are all common visitors. Mallards, blue-winged teal, northern pintails, canvasbacks, northern shovelers, redheads, and ring-necked ducks visit in great numbers too.
Oak Hammock contains a restored prairie marsh as well as a stand of Manitoba’s remaining tallgrass prairie. The permanent marsh supports 300 species of birds, 30 species of mammals, seven species of fish, five species of amphibians, and three species of reptiles. Oak Hammock’s biodiversity earned it recognition as a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance.
The Wetland Discovery Centre stands at the entrance to Oak Hammock, and many people spend their entire visit enjoying the various amenities in and around this building. The center houses a café, educational exhibits, an art gallery, and a gift shop. Outside, grassy berms, a boardwalk, a patio, and a rooftop observation deck all provide excellent wildlife viewing opportunities. The center also houses conference rooms and hosts private events ranging from business meetings to weddings to celebrations of life. People who range farther from the center can walk along several miles of trails traversing the system of dikes built to help manage water levels in the restored marsh.
DU Connection
Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) began working with the Province of Manitoba to restore wetland habitat at Oak Hammock Marsh in the 1970s, and DUC opened its headquarters here in 1993. DUC recently completed a renovation of the Wetland Discovery Centre to make it even more sustainable. The building is almost 50 percent more energy efficient than it was before this work and features a “green roof”; underground aquifer-based cooling systems; energy efficient windows that are designed to minimize bird strikes; an upgraded HVAC system; and a lagoon system to treat wastewater.
Total Area: 8,900 acres
Annual Visitors: 100,000
Peak Wildlife Viewing: Spring and fall
Amenities:
- Eight miles of trails
- Floating boardwalks
- Bike and canoe rentals
- Wetland Discovery Centre
Ría Celestún Biosphere Reserve
Celestún, Mexico
White sand, turquoise waters, and the world’s largest population of Caribbean flamingos—these are just a few of the tropical attractions that draw visitors to the Ría Celestún Biosphere Reserve. Located on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, this coastal estuary features thousands of acres of mangrove swamps interspersed with open saltwater lagoons and unique freshwater springs called cenotes.
Ría Celestún is a key area for North American waterfowl. Species that winter here include northern shovelers, redheads, canvasbacks, northern pintails, lesser scaup, American wigeon, gadwalls, American green-winged teal, and blue-winged teal. In fact, a large majority of North America’s bluewings flock here to loaf in the lagoons and to feed on extensive beds of sea grasses. In total, more than 300 species of migratory and resident birds can be found at Ria Celestún. Other notable species include brown and white pelicans, roseate spoonbills, and of course, flamingos.
Guided boat tours are the primary means of exploring this rich ecosystem. Boats glide through leafy tunnels formed by the mangroves’ canopies, where passengers can spy on birds perched in the branches above and sea creatures swimming among the roots below. The boats also make stops to watch the famous flamingos as well as massive flocks of blue-winged teal and other waterfowl. Visitors can book tours that include wildlife viewing in a freshwater cenote—where sleepy crocodiles often bask nearby. After the tour, visitors can hit the beach for fresh seafood featuring the day’s catch. Signature dishes include octopus, snook, sea bass, and stone crab.
DU Connection
Ría Celestún is home to the John E. Walker Research and Training Center, which serves as a headquarters of sorts for Ducks Unlimited de México (DUMAC) and is the base of operations for the organization’s wetlands research and education programs. DUMAC projects in and around Ría Celestún are restoring the hydrologic function and health of mangrove ecosystems that have been degraded by urban development. DUMAC was instrumental in securing Ría Celestún’s designation as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2003 and continues to help guide the reserve’s management plan.
Total Area: 200,000 acres
Annual Visitors: 50,000
Peak Wildlife Viewing: Winter
Amenities:
- Boardwalks
- Interpretive trail
- Guided boat tours
- Beachfront restaurants
Based in Colorado, Jennifer Boudart is a freelance journalist who enjoys writing about science and conservation for readers of all ages.
