Audubon Greenwich - Main Sanctuary

In total, Audubon manages 686 acres in 12 sanctuaries. Audubon Greenwich's main sanctuary has 285 acres of woodland, wetland, and meadow habitat and the Kimberlin Nature Education Center. Located at 613 Riversville Road in Greenwich, CT, guests are welcome to see exhibits, visit the nature gift store, and enjoy the seven miles of trails that are open from dawn to dusk, every day of the year.

Audubon Greenwich's Kimberlin Nature Education Center

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TRAIL MAP

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The Kimberlin Nature Education Center, opened in 2002, is an energy efficient building that features nature and conservation exhibits, busy classrooms, and an art gallery that doubles as a lecture hall. The Center's Hilfiger Children’s Learning Center has hands-on nature activities available year-round. Come visit natural history exhibits, the live honey bee hive exhibit, visit the wildlife & bird feeder viewing window, and stop in the Nature Gift Store - nature themed books, bird seed, feeders, nestboxes, and fun gifts for children. The Kimberlin Center is available for event rentals and children’s birthday parties throughout the year.

QUAKER RIDGE HAWK WATCH:

The Center is also an official raptor counting site. Known as the Quaker Ridge Hawk Watch, it is one of the best and most accessible locations in the Northeast United States to view the fall migration of raptors passing overhead. The all time record of 30,000+ broad-winged hawks counted in one day has not been matched in the region, even at Hawk Mountain, PA. Golden and Bald Eagles, Common Ravens and Black Vultures have also been spotted. Classroom and field workshops are offered to develop identification skills. A Hawk Watch Weekend Festival is held each September.

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MORE ABOUT THE MAIN SANCTUARY:

The Audubon Center in Greenwich opened in 1942 as the National Audubon Society’s first environmental education center in the United States on land donated by Eleanor Clovis Reese and H. Hall Clovis. The sanctuary's trails lead to hardwood forests, old fields, lake, streams and vernal pools. Reminders of the past are the stone walks, an old apple orchard and original New England homestead buildings.

Ecosystems at the sanctuary include large open fields, successional thickets, young and mature forests of mixed oak, beech, and maple, Mead Lake, shrub swamps, several vernal pools, Indian Spring Pond (human-made and present throughout the year), red maple swamps, and a small grove of hemlock trees. Also at the sanctuary are a beautiful old apple orchard, honeybee hives, wildflower meadows, a butterfly garden, and bird feeding station.

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The east branch of the Byram River crosses the property and was dammed in the nineteenth century to create shallow Mead Lake, home to frogs, water snakes and turtles. You will find a boardwalk and two bird blinds on the Lake Loop Trail. Noteworthy wildlife at the Center includes river otter, muskrats, wood ducks, white-tailed deer, coyotes, flying squirrels, nesting bluebirds, wild turkeys, bats, and a wide spectrum of reptiles, amphibians and birds.

Seasonal highlights include the late winter movement of spotted salamanders to their breeding pond, spring warbler migration, late summer meadow insects and the nocturnal fall migration of the saw-whet owl.

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Audubon Greenwich ~ TRAIL MAP ~ Main Sanctuary

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WILDLIFE SIGHTINGS: To report notable bird or other wildlife sightings, please leave a message (with a return phone number) for Ted Gilman at 203-869-5272 x230. You can also find a log of sightings in the front hall of the Kimberlin Nature Education Center.