Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge

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(1 vote, 1 review)

Difficulty: Easy
Length: 2.5 miles / 4.0 km
Duration: 1-3 hours

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Overview: This wildlife refuge just south of Salem is home to a wide variety of bird species. In this guide you will find two very nice boardwalk trails through wetlands that lead to covered bird blinds for wildlife viewing. Make sure you bring a camera with a good zoom lens and some binoculars.

Tips: Take exit 243 off of I-5 and follow Wintel Road south around a bend and then keep your eye out for the Ankeny Wildlife Refuge Sign and a parking area on your left and right for each trail.

Points of Interest

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Rail Trail Loop

On this loop you will find yourself on a boardwalk to a wildlife blind and then continue on around Wood Duck Pond. Keep an eye out for herons and ospreys on this loop. The trail around the pond is only open April 1st to September 30th past the observation blind. It is best to travel in a clockwise direction around Wood Duck Pond.

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Pintail & Egret Marsh Boardwalk

This short quarter mile boardwalk will bring you to another wildlife blind with views over Egret Marsh. Keep your eye out for egrets obviously as well as herons and other waterfowl.

Pictures in this guide taken by: Photo by George Gentry/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Photo by StayUp @ Flickr, available under a Creative Commons Attribution - NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License, Photo by Owen Lloyd @ Wiki Commons released into the Public Domain, Photo by Walter Siegmund @ Wiki Commons, available under a Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Jonathan Ellinger

How does this work?

Nice little hike along a boardwalk, but if you are looking to do a hike like this a better bet is Finnley Wildlife Refuge a bit further south. I made the mistake of walking past the boardwalk and into the forest portion of the trail that was full of mud in a small section, probably will be dried out by end of May.

Did see a ton of geese though across the street from the boardwalk hike.
Visited on Apr 22, 2012

by JMilesMiller on May 03, 2012