Oil Well Road, CREW Bird Rookery Swamp Trails, Collier County, 1 Dec 2025 (Oil Well Google Map Link; CREW Rookery Google Link )
Oil Well Road is named for Baron Collier's discovery of oil in the area in the 1930s. Along the road, birders typically are interested in the seasonally-flooded tomato field(s) located near the intersection of Oil Well Rd (an E-W road, CR 858) and Oil Field Grade Rd at coordinates 26°17'39.1"N 81°29'13.1"W or 26.294181, -81.486965. Oil Field Grade Rd is also called Oil well Grade. It is a NW to SE road that is not paved throughout its length and can be a muddy, gravelly mess. Please park single-file on the grassy N roadside of Oil Field Road. Exercise extreme caution because traffic may be busy with many large trucks. There are no restrooms or picnic tables located here.
The Oil Well Rd site can be 'hit' or 'miss' on any given day. There may be thousands of birds, including egrets, storks, spoonbills, cranes, sandpipers, etc., in the tomato fields. If the fields have been drained for planting, there will be far fewer species and individuals. Users of eBird report 136 bird species at the site.
Following our stop at Oil Well Road, we will caravan NW ca. 10.5 mi to the CREW Rookery Swamp Trails located at 1295 Shady Hollow Blvd, Naples. This area is managed largely by the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed (CREW) Trust, the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), and the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). Many volunteers from all walks of life help. The CREW Trust was established in 1989 and, with the support of Lee and Collier Counties and the SFWMD, began purchasing lands in the area. There are about 55,000 acres currently under conservation management. The trail we visit opened in 2011 and has a 1500-foot boardwalk through a cypress swamp. The property is adjacent to Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.
Directions to CREW from our Oil Field Rd site are relatively simple: Drive ca. 6.7 mi W on Oil Field Road, turn R (N) onto Immokalee Rd. Continue 1.4 mi on Immokalee. Turn L (W) onto Shady Hollow Blvd E (it soon becomes Shady Hollow Blvd W) and continue for 2.4 mi. You will the see the parking area on the right.
The parking area has at least one porta potty restroom. Furthermore, there are picnic tables for our BYOL lunch and list tabulations after we hike a portion of the trail. In years past, we have had to walk carefully around a female alligator after leaving the boardwalk. Picking up any baby alligator that you might see is a very bad idea.
North Cape Flats Trail & Crystal Lake Park, Cape Coral, 8 Dec 2025 (Google Map Link)
This trip is a new one for the CBC! The North Cape Flats Trail is located at 3915 NW 44th Pl, Cape Coral. It is part of Charlotte Harbor Preserve State Park and there is no entry fee. There are no restroom facilities or picnic tables located near the trail.
The trail extends about a half-mile primarily through pine flatwoods to the mud flats and sand bars on the shores of Charlotte Harbor (a one-mile up and back). Songbirds, such as Eastern Towhees, Red-headed Woodpeckers, and warblers, may be found in the woods, while Common Loons, Horned Grebes, ducks, and shorebirds, such as Marbled Godwits, may be seen in the harbor. The shore and a nearby sandbar may have as many as a dozen immature Bald Eagles that appear to be learning how to hunt.
Following our visit to the North Cape Flats trail, we will caravan to Crystal Lake Park (4307 NW 36th St, Cape Coral), a brand new Lee County park that was opened in July, 2025. It has restroom facilities and picnic tables, and is less than one mile away. Parking is free. Directions are simple. Head S on NW 44th Pl for 0.5 mi, then turn L (E) on Caloosa Pky for 0.2 mi. Then turn R (W) on NW 43rd Ave and continue for 0.2 mi. NW 43 Ave turns right and becomes NW 36th St, where you can see the entrance to the park on the right.
Crystal Lake is a 45-acre storm water impoundment with a trail around its perimeter. It has a human-made sandy beach for recreation and scattered marshy vegetation with some trees in other areas of the lake. We will make use of the new restroom facilities, bird here a bit, and then have our BYOL lunch at a picnic shelter, where we will tabulate our birding list for the day.
Bunche Beach, Fort Myers, 22 Dec 2025 (Google Map Link)
Bunche Beach is located at 18201 John Morris Rd in Fort Myers. It is an undeveloped beach that is part of the 718-acre San Carlos Bay-Bunche Beach Preserve. For many years, it was the only Fort Myers-area beach that African-Americans were allowed to use. The property was acquired by the county in 2001. It is named for Dr. Ralph Bunche (1904-1971), American political scientist, diplomat, and civil rights activist, who was the first person of African descent to win a Nobel Prize. Bunche won the Peace Prize in 1950, largely for his efforts to negotiate peace between Israel and Egypt in the late 1940s.
When driving from Fort Myers, continue W on Summerlin Rd to John Morris Rd, which is about two miles beyond the bridge over San Carlos Blvd. Turn left (S) on John Morris Rd and drive to the end of the road, where the parking area is located. . Parking costs $2/hr, unless you have a Lee County Parks and Recreation annual parking pass ($60 - https://www.leegov.com/parks/resources/parking).
There is no restroom or picnic area directly on the beach. Both are located at the kayak launch area, near the preserve entrance
Bunche beach has tidal sandy beach and mangrove habitats. Shore birds and waders may be abundant. Users of eBird report 241 bird species from the site. Birding success is largely tidal dependent. If the tide is really high, there will be fewer birds. If the tide is really low, the birds will be far away. We try to plan our trips for relatively low tides.
Depending on the quality of birding, we may have lunch (BYOL) and tabulate our list at picnic tables near the kayak launch or, more likely, caravan to another site, such as Lakes Park (7330 Gladiolus Dr, Fort Myers), ca. 8 miles away, with restrooms, picnic facilities, and additional birding. Directions: Head N for 1.2 mi to Summerlin Rd. Turn right (E) onto Summerlin for 5.5 mi. Merge onto Gladiolus Dr for about 1 mi and turn left into Lakes Park. Parking costs $1/hr or $5/day, unless you have a Lee County Parks and Recreation annual parking pass.
Prairie Creek Preserve, Punta Gorda, 29 December 2025 (Google Map Link to Winn-Dixie)
Prairie Creek Preserve (1900 Duncan Road, Punta Gorda) is a 1603-acre tract of upland habitats, including relatively open slash and longleaf pine forests that are maintained by prescribed fires. Prairie Creek is a tributary of Shell Creek, the main source of water for Punta Gorda. We drive down the two-track, unpaved Live Oak Blvd through open farm fields and a few roadside woodlots to reach the preserve, birding along the way.
Meet at the Winn-Dixie parking lot (27680 Bermont Rd, Punta Gorda), by taking I-75 N to Exit 164, US-17, turning right (E) and going 1.2 mi. Winn-Dixie is on the right. There we will try to leave some cars and form carpools so that we have a smaller number of cars traveling down the two-track with less disturbance to wildlife.
We will caravan (it is hoped with a smaller number of cars) by turning right (NE) onto US-17. Go 6.9 mi and turn Right (E) on Live Oak Blvd, the two-track. We will drive slowly along the two-track through open fields, where we might see Eastern Meadowlarks, Grasshopper Sparrows, Savannah Sparrows, Bobwhite, even Burrowing Owls if the grass is short. At some roadside woodlots, we will probably see various warblers. When we reach the preserve, a highlight might be encountering Florida Scrub-Jays!
Following our visit to the Prairie Creek Preserve, we will backtrack on the two-track to US-17 and likely seek out a local park with restroom and picnic facilities, where we will eat lunch (BYOL) and tabulate our bird list.