Sam & Maisie's
Great things to do ...

Both Reinstein & Tifft are must visit places and perfect to start to nature. Close to Buffalo, both have nature centers and regular family-friendly programming.

• • Reinstein. A must visit - great place to start to nature. Best summer camp in town! Watch out for ticks, particularly in the spring.

  • Tifft. Fields are just as fun as the trails through the woods! A Buffalo favorite and great for birding. Watch out for biting ants in the summer.

• Beaver Island. On Grand Island - beach and wetlands with great playground, open space, and birding - beach can often be crowded on warm summer day - $7 parking fee.

• Beaver Meadow. Audubon center in the southtowns - a bit of a drive. Their Superb Owl event the Saturday before the Super Bowl is not to be missed. Great halloween programming and family programming throughout the year.

• Birdsong Parklands. Lovely, easy wander among wetlands in the southtowns. Great birds and herps.

• Bond Lake. Pretty mix of trails and traditional lake park in Niagara County.

• Boston Forest County Park. This was nice - didn't see anyone and saw lots of birds but only in one small area. Won't go out of our way to go back but a nice enough wander.

• Braddock Bay. Braddock Bay is a lovely wetlands park north of Rochester. Well worth the drive for the bird banding station where you can help out with bird banding - there is a raptor research station too!

• Buckthorn. Another great Grand Island park - recommend parking at East Overlook for bird blinds and walking along bike path to little "beaches" by the river.

• Burchfield Nature & Art Center. Simple, easy to access place with interesting art and a good playground - good place to start with little kids.

• Chestnut Ridge. The eternal flame hike is a Buffalo standard. Other trails are great too and awesome sledding in winter. Can be crowded on pretty days.

• Eighteen Mile Creek. A fine creek hike but hasn't had the same biodiversity and signs of healthy water like other favorites. Maybe we've just gone at the wrong time of the year.

• Franklin Gulf. Probably one of the best kept secrets in the area. Stay left when you get on the trails and keep going left to get to a beautiful tree lined shale creek - wonderful for finding salamanders, newts, frogs, and toads!

• Griffis Sculpture Park. A little different from the rest - fields and trails with interesting (and climbable) sculptures. A bit of a drive but a lot of fun.

• Hampton Brook Woods Wildlife Management. Small but nice wooded area along 18 mile creek.

• Hunters Creek. One of the best places to go on a hot day but can get crowded as more people have found out about it in the past few years.

• Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge. Such a great place for birds! Wonderful wetland habitats - best for cool, overcast days when it isn't super hot & sunny.

• Letchworth State Park. Gorgeous place for camping and hiking and only about an hour away. Still need to poke around here more.

• Letchworth Woods. Amazing amount of biodiversity in this little patch of woods on the UB north campus. We've seen creatures here we haven't seen anywhere else in the wild!

• Little Rock City. A bit of a drive but worth it for amazing huge rocks to scramble and walk between. One of our favorite places and even has camping!

• Niagara Glen. Worth the drive across the rainbow bridge to Canada! Great gorge hike with photo scavenger hunt to earn points and trade in for rocks, shells, etc.

• Rollin T. Grant. Also known as "P'ivy Gulf". More poison ivy here than we've ever seen in WNY.

• Royalton Ravine. Very cool - interesting old ruins, fun bridge, little creek - not bad for a northernly hike.

• Sinking Pond Wildlife Sanctuary. We called this one "stinking" pond. It was fine but there are better places in our opinion.

• Sprague Brook. Our favorite place for camping and a great spot for creek hikes, trail hikes, and mountain biking.

• Stella Niagara. This is a lovely wander in a field by the river with great bird watching. Watch out for a few spots of p'ivy too!

• Tillman. Lovely ponds and trails in Clarence. Need to explore more.

• Whirlpool. Intense stairs and rock scrambled but really awesome ending on rocks right by huge whirlpool rapids which is great for picnics.

We haven't done all of these but hope to one of these days!

• US

  • • Allegany State Park

    • Black Swamp Bird Observatory

    • Cook Forest

    • Cuyahoga Valley National Park

  • Canada

    • Long Point

    • Amherst Island

    • Rondeau

    • Pelee

Don't just take it from us! Here are some other great resources:

• Earth Spirit

• Erie County Parks

• The Field Guides

• Allegany Nature Pilgrimage

• NYS DEC

• WNY Land Conservancy

• Browse eBird hotspots for Erie & Niagara