The Black Point Wildlife Drive: Florida's Best Wildlife Drive

Despite the rampant development that has destroyed much of its natural beauty, Florida remains one of the best places in the world to observe and photograph birds and other wildlife. Certainly one of the most accessible and interesting wildlife viewing areas is the Black Point Drive in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Titusville, Florida. This seven-mile long drive parallels a canal and provides amazing access to all types of shore birds, bald eagles, alligators, bobcats and other animals. The success of your drive has a lot to do with when you go (transitional months like October and March are great for seeing bird migrations--I've seen thousands of coots in a single pond area in October, for example), but I've been to the refuge in almost every month and while there are some very slow seasons, there is almost always something interesting to watch.

You can make the drive in any type of car (it's even big enough for moderate motor homes), but we always rent an SUV so that we're got good road clearance for the occasional rut and so that we can see above some of the roadside scrub. Visibililty is never a problem though, this is a very flat, open sanctuary (the photo here was shot from a car window at the beginning of the drive). By the way, the best way to photograph birds is from inside your car--so bring a beanbag camera support or roll up a sweater to rest the camera on in the window frame. And, of course, early morning and evening are the two best times to observe any wildlife. In addition to the main seven-mile drive, there are also a few extended drives into more remote areas, but these are not always open and do require four-wheel drive--the roads are rough (though totally safe).

The drive is "free" but there is a donation box at the start of the drive and trust me, this is a drive worth dropping $5 in the box to see. The Merritt Island Sactuary is a 140,000-acre preserve that was created by NASA and surrounds the outlying areas of the Kennedy Space Center and you can see the towering buildings of the Space Center in the distance from several points on the drive--very interesting! The town of Titusville, which is on the very pretty Indian River, is a small and low-key town with several nice motels of which the new Hampton Inn is probably the most comfortable and is only about 10-15 minutes from the drive, at most. Titusville is about 30-40 minutes due east of Orlando and very easy to get to.

Comments

[Lew]

Wow....its great.

[2010 World Cup Soccer Safari]

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