Eccles Wildlife Education Center: Nature Trail

 The George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Wildlife Education Center in Farmington Bay is a wonderful wetland area located in Farmington. Aside from the visitor center, it features 3 trails to explore the wetlands and see some birds. We have done all of the trails multiple times, but we decided to do the main Nature Trail again today.

Since it is kind of a pain and not conducive to capturing fast moving wildlife to swap lenses on the fly, I kept the telephoto lens on so not the best trail shots today.

Quick Details:

Length: 1.6 mile loop with 2 spurs (1.15 miles if you skip the spurs).
Trail Type: Loop with spurs.
Difficulty: DR3. It is flat and graded, but there is at least one spot I am sure is not quite ADA compliant.
Elevation Gain: NA
Restroom: Pit toilets open any day during daylight. The visitor center has flush toilets, but they are closed when the visitor center is closed, on Sundays, Mondays and holidays.
Dogs? Not on this trail.
Other Info: The visitor center is open Tues - Sat 11:30 Am to 3:30 PM, Closed Sundays, Mondays, and Holidays, but the nature trails can be accessed any day during daylight hours.

To Get Here:

The Trail:

The George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Wildlife Education Center.

One lone heron on the heron nesting poles. You can see those a little closer along the Glovers Pond Trail.

Closer look at him.

Trailhead sign.

The trail is well packed dirt on this end as it follows a canal.

Mountains.

The benches are big blocks of wood. It made me wonder if they did the same thing that Allen Park did and used the downed trees from the great September 2020 windpocolypse.

The canal.

Red-winged blackbird.

Oh, what do we have here?

Some ring-neck pheasants.

It was kind of fun watching them run across the ice.

While the other 2 crossed the canal to the left, this one scurried into the grasses on the right.

Where he quickly disappeared. These guys are good at disappearing. I guess if I was a game bird, I would try to be good at hiding too.

Particularly muddy spot. It wasn’t boot sucking mud though.

The pond.

Farmington Creek.

The old bridge over the creek.

The pond again.

Still hard packed dirt.

Mountains and canyons.

Another little pond.

Quite often I see some shape and decide to point my telephoto lens at it to determine if it might be wildlife of some sort. I would say that like 95% of the time it ends up being a piece of bark, sticks, or a rock.

Then there is that other 5% that it is something. Here is a northern harrier.

Pretty girl.

Honestly I am kind of surprised it let us get as close as we did before taking off. Of course we stayed on the trail.

Flying off.

Then we hit a boardwalk section.

Another bridge over Farmington Creek.

Frozen upstream…

Not so much downstream.

Lots and lots of cattails and phragmites.

Thank you plaque for The Wheeler Foundation for your support of the Great Salt Lake Learning center and for sponsoring this section of the trail.

More boardwalk.

Another thank you, this time to George C. Chipman for your generous donation of time and service to the Great Salt Lake Learning Center Trail.

Approaching the long bridge.

Panoramic of the mountains.

A thank you to Colonial Building Supply for support, and sponsoring the section of the boardwalk.

The pond again.

The long bridge again.

A Thank you to Intermountain HelicalPiers for your support and for sponsoring the pond bridge.

The pond with the piers.

Back to hard packed dirt.

Looking towards the visitor center.

I mentioned to Landis that hawk watching in the tall grass is a lot like whale watching in the ocean. You never know where one might pop up!

Another northern harrier.

Looks like I didn’t take a picture of the split but we took the side trail out to the first pier. It’s only about 1/10th of a mile out and back.

Not the sharpest picture, but it looks like this one had a successful hunt.

The eastern pier.

View of the pond and mountains.

Another red-winged blackbird.

You can see a hint of the red wing here.

Looks like the storm is coming in. Good thing we are almost done.

Back on the main trail.

Another northern harrier. They really just pop up out of nowhere.

Trail split for the 2nd pier. This spur is a little over 2/10ths of a mile out and back.

Yet another northern harrier.

I can’t remember if this is the same one that swung around again, or a new one.

Of course the most clear shot I got is behind some grasses.

Another shot.

Trail out to the pier.

This one has a short boardwalk.

The west pier.

View of the pond and mountains from it.

Back to the main trail.

Little bridge.

Another norther harrier. Holy crap I can’t believe how many we have seen through here.

Into the grass.

Almost to the end of the trail and back to the road.

Now there are 2 great blue herons on the nesting poles.

Back to the road. Now just the short stint back to the parking lot.

Wetlands.

Mountains.

A male northern harrier. All the previous ones were female, or juveniles.

2 herons on the nesting poles.

Hard to tell for sure, but it looks like I caught a bald eagle flying overhead.

Northern harrier on an eerie horizon caused by the incoming storm.

Starting to overtake Antelope Island.

Another one.

And another.

The heron nesting poles again.

Trying to beat the storm home (PSP).

That was a very enjoyable trail. I can't believe how many Northern harriers we saw! How cow! Plus it was not terribly busy so it was nice. 8 out of 10 squirrels today.

As for difficulty, it is pretty flat and well packed trails. They say it is ADA accessible but I think one of the bridges is too thin, plus with some of the muddy conditions maybe not so much. DR3.

Dogs are no longer allowed on this trail. So be sure to leave Fido home.