Elk Neck State Park – Turkey Point

Turkey Point at Elk Neck State Park is located on a peninsula between the North East and Elk Rivers, at the top of the Chesapeake Bay. The Elk Neck peninsula acts as a migrant trap, and is best-known as a hawk watch spot during fall migration. In addition, Turkey Point is a great place for migrating passerines in both spring and fall and for waterfowl in winter. The rich habitat and strategic location combine to make Turkey Point the #1 eBird hotspot in Cecil County, with over 215 species reported. The Turkey Point area consists primarily of hardwood forest and open meadows located on high bluffs above the rivers and the Bay.

From 1994 through 2016, volunteers from the Cecil Bird Club staffed the Turkey Point Hawk Watch, and their data can be viewed in the database of the Hawk Migration Association of North America. Although the Turkey Point hawk watch site no longer has official counters, it is still a good place to watch migrating hawks.

As of fall 2021, the Maryland Biodiversity Project has launched a daily fall bird count that collects data on all birds, not just hawks, at Turkey Point. The project, sponsored in part by the Maryland Ornithological Society, seeks to document fall migrating birds. Data can be viewed on the Maryland Biodiversity Project’s website, almost in real time during the fall count season, which runs from August 1 through November 15.

The Turkey Point area of Elk Neck State Park (about 278 acres) is separated from the rest of the 2,369-acre state park by a private residential community, known as Chesapeake Isle. Note that it is not permitted to park on the private roads within Chesapeake Isle to walk into the park.

The parking lot for Turkey Point, at the southern terminus of MD Route 272, is small, and on weekends fills quickly.  Rangers will turn excess cars away, so be sure to arrive early. It is about a one-mile walk to the Point and its historic lighthouse, with good birding all the way. Most of the walk is on a gravel lane on level ground, although the first part is a short uphill section with spectacular views of the water from the top of the cliffs.

After parking, walk past the gate onto the gravel lane, which heads south with cliffs overlooking the Northeast River on your right. The treetops on the cliffs can be filled with migrant songbirds during migration. Continue south on this lane, which will soon veer inland, passing through two meadows. The wood edges on both sides of the lane are prime places to look for migrating warblers, vireos, thrushes, flycatchers, and more. Especially good is the corner where the lane makes a sharp left as it veers inland.  The trees in this corner are festooned with vines where songbirds like to hunt for insects and berries. The ground underneath has a lot of downed wood, which attracts migrant thrushes and Winter Wrens.

To reach the hawk watch site, continue on the gravel lane through the first meadow and then through a small strip of trees, emerging in the second meadow. The hawk watch site is near a picnic bench and a kiosk installed by the Cecil Bird Club that displays paintings of the common hawks that fly over in the fall.

Be sure to continue past the hawk watch site to the lighthouse area and the Point itself.  The gravel lane will take you through a small woodlot to emerge at the  historic lighthouse (no longer operational). As you emerge into the clearing by the lighthouse, check the vines and shrubs on both sides of the lane, as well as the tall red cedar trees, for migrant songbirds. Also be sure to check the vegetation at the top of the cliffs past the lighthouse, and on the cliffs, for more migrants. Palm Warblers especially like the cliffs in fall. From the lighthouse, the trail continues to the west (your right as you face the water), skirting the cliffs to go downhill to the site of the old boat landing used by the long-gone lighthouse keepers. At this point, the trail turns inland through the woods, going up a slope to re-emerge in the meadow near the hawk watch site.