Chasing the Pink: My First Birding Trip to the Orlando Wetlands

Ever since I've gotten into birding, the Orlando Wetlands has come up in my research for the best destination in Orlando for birding. For some reason though every time I've had the motivation to go it's always been on a Monday when the park is closed. But finally the proverbial stars aligned, when I took a week off of work for a staycation, I was finally able to make it out to the wetlands. The wetlands while about an hour drive from where I live in Orlando, feels like it could be much further out, as you take the road going out of town and as the city, and hustle of Orlando fades. When you enter Christmas, you really can feel and tell you're detached from the city. But you're really not too far from all of it.

One of the main reasons I wanted to visit the wetlands was to see the Roseate Spoonbill in the wild. They have them at Disney's Animal Kingdom, but it just isn't the same. The spoonbills are really only in Orlando and active from January through May, after that they're usually elsewhere. I went in April and there was still a ton of spoonbills present, but most of the birds were larger. If you come earlier in the year you can see them nesting, and having babies. So come 2027, I'll be coming earlier in the year to see the babies in the nests, and hatchlings before they're pink.

The facility is overall pretty nice, there's a bathroom close to the parking lot, along with picnic tables, a grassy area where kids can run around and play. There's a little bit of walk over to the visitor center. While I did not go in this time, it's a newer building and looks nice, and it has bathrooms and information of the plants, animals, birds that are around. There's also a free tram tour that operates on the weekends year round, and more frequently during the cooler months. I do intend to also do the tram tour when it's a bit cooler outside, but being summer now, it's just really hot outside.

There's a bunch of walking paths that are mostly just dirt roads, there's some occasional benches and places to rest, but it's almost entirely in the sun, so even though I went in April, I wore a sun hat to protect my face and neck, and it was definitely needed because the sun was brutal. The boardwalk over the lake while leaving you completely exposed to the elements, is where I managed to see the spoonbills as they seemed to nest in the trees on the island.

You may encounter some of the other local wildlife than birds on your walk, like the alligator I caught a picture of. He seemed happy to see me, and so I named him Gerald, but gave him a healthy amount of space when I walked by. Surprisingly, or maybe not, this was the closest I've been to an alligator in the 8 years I've lived in Florida. There were a couple other gators around the path that I saw, they seemed pretty docile, but I didn't get close enough to test that. There were also some fish you could occasionally see jumping out of the water, and even some turtles.

Overall, I'm really looking forward to being able to come back earlier in the year when the weather is cooler, and there's baby spoonbills around to get pictures of. If you're wanting to go for a nice outdoor walk in Orlando, or especially if you're looking to do some birding, I highly recommend going to the Orlando wetlands, this is truly a "hidden" treasure of the Orlando area.

Quick Summary of the Orlando Wetlands