Buckhorn Island State Park is an
state park located in
Erie County,
New York in the
Town of Grand Island. The park is on the northern end of the island of Grand Island.
The park is 1 of 80 New York State Parks that are in the path of totality for the 2024 solar eclipse, with 3 minutes and 37 seconds of totality.
Park description
Buckhorn Island State Park is primarily an exhibit of
Niagara River wetlands, and is managed as a preserve. As such, the park offers space for largely passive recreational uses, such as biking, cross-country skiing, fishing, hiking, and a nature trail.
[
A portion of the park has been set aside as a bird conservation area in order to protect nesting habitat for several species listed as ]threatened
Threatened species are any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of ''critical depensa ...
in New York State, including the least bittern
The least bittern (''Ixobrychus exilis'') is a small heron, the smallest member of the family Ardeidae found in the Americas.
Taxonomy
The least bittern was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his r ...
, northern harrier
The northern harrier (''Circus hudsonius''), or ring-tailed hawk, is a bird of prey. It breeds throughout the northern parts of the northern hemisphere in Canada and the northernmost USA.
The northern harrier migrates to more southerly areas ...
, common tern
The common tern (''Sterna hirundo'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. This bird has a circumpolar distribution, its four subspecies breeding in temperate and subarctic regions of Europe, Asia and North America. It is strongly migrator ...
, and sedge wren. The protected habitat also serves as a feeding and breeding area for numerous other species of waterfowl.gull
Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century ...
s, nearly half of the world's 45 species.
See also
* List of New York state parks
* Navy Island
Navy Island is a small, uninhabited island in the Niagara River in the province of Ontario, managed by Parks Canada as a National Historic Site of Canada. It is located about upstream from Horseshoe Falls, and has an area of roughly . It is acr ...
National Historic Site of Canada
National Historic Sites of Canada (french: Lieux historiques nationaux du Canada) are places that have been designated by the federal Minister of the Environment on the advice of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (HSMBC), as being ...
References
External links
New York State Parks: Buckhorn Island State Park
State parks of New York (state)
Robert Moses projects
Parks in Erie County, New York
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