Palencia Boardwalk with Bill McNee

Join Bill McNee for a fun visit to the Palencia Boardwalk – sometimes referred to as the Tolomato River Boardwalk. The boardwalk provides a fantastic platform to see a great diversity of shorebirds, wading birds, rails, pelicans, raptors, and waterfowl out over the marsh, as well as warblers, vireos, kinglets and other songbirds that inhabit the small islands located out in the marsh toward the Tolomato River. We will also be in search of Salt Marsh, Nelson’s and Seaside Sparrows, as the walk has been scheduled to coincide with hightide. At that time, the sparrows do their best to avoid the high water by bouncing around in the reeds, and sometimes even taking refuge on the boardwalk itself!

The elevated boardwalk is a marvelous amenity added to the private Palencia development in 2006 – however, note that it is open to the public. Parking is extremely limited, so please arrive and sign-in at 7:45am at the Publix parking lot near the entrance to the Palencia community.

Promptly at 8:00am, we will carpool in to not overwhelm the available parking at the boardwalk entrance area. Given this constraint, we’re organizing this as a “smaller group” event with 15 or fewer attendees.

If you would like, check out the list of birds that are often seen at this time of year on eBird: https://ebird.org/hotspot/L3224130/recent-checklists

Directions: The entrance to the private Palencia residential community is located just off of US-1 at the intersection of International Golf Parkway / 9-mile in northern St. Johns County. As noted, we will meet at the Publix parking lot near the entrance to the community, and carpool in 4-5 cars to ensure that we don’t overwhelm the available parking at the entrance to the boardwalk.

We encourage you to consider joining the St. Johns Regional Audubon. You can join for as little as $15/year, which can help us continue and expand our work. To join, follow this link: https://stjohnsaudubon.com/membership/

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Palencia Village Publix Parking Lot, The Shoppes at Palencia Commons, St. Augustine, United States