Nashville's Birding Hotspots

Warner Parks

Nashville’s Percy Warner Park and Edwin Warner Park - collectively The Warner Parks - consist of 3,195 acres of protected land administered by  Nashville Metro Parks and Recreation  with the support of Friends of Warner Parks. As a combined park, they comprise the second largest metropolitan park in Tennessee (Memphis’s Shelby Farms Park is the largest), and offer excellent birding year-round. 

Percy Warner Park

Walk the paved or dirt hiking trails for resident woodland birds and seasonal migrants, or wander around the Deep Well trailhead, Spring Hollow Picnic Area, and Beech Grove Picnic Area.

Great for Spring and Fall warblers and thrushes. Barred, Great Horned, and Screech Owls are all present. Check the Steeplechase grounds for Eastern Meadowlark, sparrows, and raptors. 

Edwin Warner Park

The smaller of the Warner Parks is home to the Warner Park Nature Center with a great museum area and year-round guided activities along well-kept trails.

Nesting Purple Martins, Barn and Tree Swallows, Eastern Bluebirds, and more are in high numbers around the Nature Center in Summer.

Across from the Nature Center on HWY 100, the Burch Reserve features excellent meadow habitat and a roughly 3-mile loop climbing a steep ridge. Note: No pets, vehicles, or trail running are allowed in this natural area.

The adjacent Hill Forest is a State Conservation area and is accessible only by guided tours from the Nature Center. 

Shelby Bottoms Park

This sprawling metro park in East Nashville borders the west bank of the Cumberland River and boasts the highest species count of any Nashville hotspot.

The  Shelby Bottoms Nature Center  offers year-round activities and has bird feeders and a small blind.

The paved greenway and a few unpaved trails are surrounded by marshy woodland habitat, great for Meadowlarks and grassland species. Look for Marsh Wren, Sedge Wren, Alder Flycatchers, and American Bittern during Spring migration in marshy areas. Additional trail access from the Cornelia Fort Airpark and the Forrest Green Trailhead.

Sevier Lake is a fishing pond on the park's southern edge, attracting waterfowl in winter. This is the first place in the county to have resident Fish Crows. 

Centennial Park

This urban park in midtown offers some easy outdoor walking and is home to Nashville's full-scale replica of  The Parthenon .

Fair numbers of mature oaks and hickories offer shade, and visiting birders can easily spy the more common resident species here - with occasional surprises during migration.

Lake Watauga sports many domestic Mallards and Canada Geese, but migratory waterfowl are sometimes present in winter. Green Heron and Belted Kingfisher are among the common summer residents. 

Walter S. Davis Boulevard Marsh

This tiny seasonal lake and cattail marsh on the property of Tennessee State University is only a fragment of marsh habitat that once bordered the Cumberland River on the north and western edges of downtown Nashville.

If water levels are low during migration, shorebirds and sometimes Sora or American Bittern are possible. 

Parking is difficult and subject to change, but can usually be found across the street near a gate to the football stadium parking.

Bells Bend Park

This park boasts more than 800 acres of fields and reclaimed pastures, bordered by riparian woodland on the western edge of Davidson County and the bend of the Cumberland River by the same name.

Bells Bend is the best local hotspot for grassland species in all seasons, and possibly the only reliable spot in the county for Northern Bobwhite. Displaying American Woodcock are common in late winter, and raptors are well spotted here, including all of the area owls.

Birding can be very good anywhere along Old Hickory Blvd past the park. 

Beaman Park

Offering more heavily wooded trails and higher elevations than elsewhere in the county, Beaman Park definitely feels more off the beaten track than our other metro parks.

Very good for forest breeding birds like Scarlet and Summer Tanagers and Yellow-throated Vireo, and by far the best place in the county for Louisiana Waterthrush, Worm-eating Warbler, and Ovenbird.

Pay attention to trail maps - the Laurel Woods trail is 12.5 miles of backcountry ridges! The Creekside Trail along Henry Creek is a good option for a few hours of birding. 

Percy Priest Lake

The huge 42-mile-long reservoir that is Percy Priest Lake offers numerous publicly accessible locations in three counties, including several in Davidson.

Winter can bring large amounts of waterfowl, loons, grebes, and gulls. Indeed, Percy Priest is one of the most dependable places in the state now for Pacific and Red-throated Loons in winter. Points around the lake are good for nesting Baltimore Oriole and Warbling Vireo in summer. 

Percy Priest Dam Overlook

The overlook by the dam is a great place to scan a huge section of the lake (much of what is contained in Davidson County). A spotting scope is recommended. The area below the dam at the Stones River Greenway trailhead can also be very good for terns and gulls in winter.

 Cook Recreation Area  and Seven Points Recreation Area on the north side of the lake offer some woodland as well as lake birding and boat access.

In winter, birders can walk into the seasonally closed campground areas. Large gull roosts have historically formed in the lake between Cook and Seven Points.