City Park - Wisner Tract (Old East Golf Course)

New Orleans' City Park Wisner Tract offers birding and hiking trails on the site of the Old East Golf Course. Old cart paths serve as trails that weave through all of habitat types, including bottomland hardwood forest, cypress swamp, lagoons and shrubby/overgrown fields.

This site offers a different landscape motif in comparison to the Park's nearby Couturie Forest, attracting its own suite of birdlife depending on the season. For example, Painted Bunting nests here, but not at other park sites. As lagoons are more numerous here, they hold more possibilities for waterfowl (winter), wading birds (year round) and other waterbirds such as Anhinga (year round), Double-crested Cormorant (winter/spring), American White Pelican (winter), and Brown Pelican (August-April).

Mississippi Kite and Red-shouldered Hawk nest here. Other raptors, including Osprey, Cooper's Hawk, Bald Eagle, and Red-tailed Hawk, regularly visit each fall, winter and spring. Willow Flycatcher, one of the more uncommon of the eastern U.S. Empidonax species, has been detected here in late September and early October, as have Olive-sided and Ash-throated Flycatchers and Western Kingbird.

Ten sparrow species have been detected in the brushy overgrown fields here, and 33 warbler species have been recorded from the forested areas. 

A total of 184 species have been recorded at the Wisner Tract, including a long list of rarities/vagrants. 

Site amenities are limited to gravel parking and walking paths, used only by birders, hikers, and fishermen. Not handicapped accessible.