Negri-Nepote Native Grassland Preserve

Negri-Nepote Native Grassland Preserve (2/24/2013)

With very limited time for being outdoors this weekend, we decided to finally visit this small preserve in Franklin Township that's been on my list for a while waiting for exactly this opportunity. It's a beautiful, varied area with some trails along the edge of open fields, some through grasslands and some through woods. It's also known for being a pretty good birding site (the entire preserve is literally packed with birdhouses). Ironically, while we saw a handful of birds today, we mostly saw birds of the mechanical type: today the area was in the flight path of several jumbo jets, shuttles and private planes.

Following this map we first headed NW on blue, visiting the wildlife blind overlooking Hannah Pond, continued on Yellow to the NW corner of the preserve. We continued NE along Yellow, acrossing under powerlines (not on the map) before heading east on Brown through a wooded area and back south and then west to Yellow. Back on Yellow we headed south to the Purple trail, which we took back to the car.

Total distance hiked today was 3 miles in 90 minutes.

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