Sandy Creek Trail
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[edit] Description
Sandy Creek Trail is a small but productive birding site within the city limits of Durham, North Carolina. Although the area has been covered on Chapel Hill Bird Club bird counts for many years, it otherwise seems to have remained largely unknown to birders.
The site of a long-abandoned sewage treatment plant, the property was purchased by the Triangle Land Conservancy in 1993 under the name "Boulevard Lands" and was transferred to Durham County in the same year. About 10 years later, Durham developed the site as a park by removing most of the ruins of the sewage treatment plant, constructing a small pond, paving a greenway trail, and constructing restrooms. The site is part of the planned New Hope Creek corridor. Much of the currently developed section of Sandy Creek Trail is contained within Sandy Creek Park.
[edit] Birds
In spring, the swampy area along the paved trail usually hosts Prothonotary Warblers and Wood Ducks. The upland woods has a few Wood Thrushes. Typical resident and migrant songbirds of the piedmont may be seen throughout. The pond often hosts Spotted or Solitary Sandpipers during migration, and occasionally other shorebird species have been seen. Northern Rough-winged Swallows also may be seen at the pond.
In winter, the upland woods usually hosts a few Winter Wrens. Sparrows are numerous in winter, mostly Field, Fox, Song, Swamp, and White-throated Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos. A Lincoln's Sparrow has been seen here.
An albino Downy Woodpecker has been seen here a few times in recent years.
[edit] Directions
To drive to the park, take Pickett Road and turn south onto Sandy Creek Drive literally right at the west end of the Pickett Road overpass over US 15-501. Follow Sandy Creek Drive to its end.
