We love birds, as many of you know. Bird watching, bird drives, and learning about birds in Utah are some of our favorite adventures. We recently visited the George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Wildlife Education Center, which is located at Farmington Bay. It’s quite a mouthful to say, but it is FREE and worth a stop for exploring.
The Eccles Wildlife Education Center has two small buildings. One is an information building. There are volunteers to answer questions and help you with your visit. There are also some birds on display and a large viewing window with binoculars. The window looks over the wetlands and allows you to see birds while they don’t see you. The other building has a classroom and an auditorium for field trips and events.
The highlight of the trip to the Eccles Wildlife Education Center is the 1.6 mile trail. The trail is flat, but there is no shade. Bring lots of water and sunscreen. It is not paved, but you could push a stroller easily. Most of the trail is boardwalk.
We absolutely loved walking along this trail. Part of the trail walks along the water, and in other sections the plants grow right up the boardwalk. There were also great spots for photos with bridges and beautiful scenery.
We saw lots of frogs, as well as lots of birds. Some of the birds that we saw were coots, mergansers, cormorants, great blue herons, and ducks. We didn’t see any snakes, but the volunteers told us to watch out for them. Make sure to get the scavenger hunt from the Eccles Wildlife Education Center. Our youngest loved marking off all of the things we saw, and it helped us notice so much more as we explored.
The Eccles Wildlife Education Center is open 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. The center is closed on Sundays, Mondays and holidays. You can park outside of the gate and walk the trail anytime, but the buildings are only open during the hours listed above. There are also school programs and fun events, too. Make sure to follow them on Facebook for the current activities happening at the center.
We always drive the Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area drive when we visited the Eccles Wildlife Center. They are perfect to pair together and there are lots of beautiful spots to see birds or other wildlife there, too. Two of our other favorite spots for birding are up in this part of Northern Utah, too. One is Antelope Island and the other is the Bear River Migratory Refuge. If you are looking for other places for bird watching, those two spots are great, too.
