Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park

Effort/Distance: Moderate/short, family friendly. Cost: $4.00 car entrance fee.

Registration is required.

Audubon’s Dr. Paul Gray, who has worked on the prairies for almost three decades will lead and narrate the trip through this region of rich natural and human history.

This tour of Florida’s endemic Dry Prairie ecosystem will be mostly from our cars with periodic stops to look around and take a couple of 100-yard hikes into the prairie where it will be weedy with some uneven ground. We’ll also take one quarter mile hike on a shell road to a slough. Those who have mobility issues to any of these places can wait in their cars.

The dry prairie has more plant species per acre than any ecosystem in the United States. The Preserve also has the longest butterfly list in the state, due to myriad plants. The most endangered bird in the continental US, the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow, is barely hanging on here (we probably won’t see one). Despite being only knee-high in stature, the prairie is an old growth ecosystem with some plants probably more than 5000 years old.

Meet at Cracker Trail Store 18084 US-98 Okeechobee, FL 34972 in Bassinger, FL

We will car caravan from a meeting place in West Palm Beach

Host or Publisher Audubon Everglades