Pepper Ranch Preserve

The more time I spend in southwest Florida, the more interesting birding spots I find. One of them is Pepper Ranch Preserve. It is located northeast of Naples, along the shore of Lake Trafford. The preserve is open Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from November to June, except on scheduled hunt days. Check their website before heading out. Also, visitors need to sign in at the park office and obtain a day pass. Then, you can drive, bike, or hike the preserve. If it’s been very rainy, beware that the roads and paths are muddy. Be careful not to get stuck.

Once you are inside the gated preserve, you enter an extensive area of protected wetlands, mixed woodlands, and working pastures that are interspersed with natural habitats. Yes, there are still active cattle operations. Do watch for cattle crossing the road.

Sandhill Crane

We like to drive slowly and stop to look around. We check the fields for Sandhill Cranes and Wild Turkey. The fields have swampy areas, too. These attract Wood Storks, Great Blue Herons, and Great Egrets. There are so many Cattle Egrets, some of them hitching a ride on an obliging cow. Black Vultures, Turkey Vultures, and Osprey soar overhead. If you are lucky, you’ll see a Crested Caracara surveying everything from a tall tree.

Green Heron

We always stop at a wetland. It is where I found my lifer King Rail (see picture at top of article). This past February, the birds I saw in that spot included Limpkin, Roseate Spoonbill, Anhinga, Green Heron, Tricolor Heron, and Snowy Egret. There are always alligators in the water or basking on the water’s edge.

Common Ground Dove

The wooded areas have their special treats. In February, as we entered the preserve, there was a White-winged Dove perched on a wire. A Common Ground Dove flew up in front of our car. There were Red-bellied, Downy, and Pileated Woodpeckers. We had singing White-eyed Vireo, Carolina Wren, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Northern Parula, and Yellow-rumped Warbler. We then heard the calls of Eastern Phoebe and Great Crested Flycatcher.

Eastern Meadowlark

One of my most favourite moments, driving through the pasturelands in any February, is to roll down my window and listen to the singing Eastern Meadowlarks. The fields are full of them. The sound is so beautiful and ethereal.

Pepper Ranch Preserve is somewhere that you can spend a whole day and always see something new or interesting on each trip.

Note: All photos are from Wikipedia Commons, an online source of copyright-free photos: King Rail by Liam Wolff; Sandhill Crane by Frank Schulenburg; Green Heron by Peter W Chen; Common Ground Dove by Judy Gallagher; Eastern Meadowlark by Gary Leavens.