Rhode Trip! Every single Audubon Wildlife Refuge in Rhode Island, ranked
What makes me qualified to rank all 13 Audubon Wildlife Refuges in Rhode Island, you ask?
Well, nothing — except that I’m one of very few people to have seen them all.
Back in 2021, I went to the Audubon Society of Rhode Island’s website in search of a good weekend walk. As I scrolled through the list of refuges, I realized I’d already visited more than half of them, purely by accident. My immediate reaction: Heck, why not catch ’em all?
This is the sort of low-stakes bucket list achievement I love to chase after. Forget highpointing and peak-bagging. Forget through-hiking the Appalachian Trail. Give me a dozen lazy walks in the woods in flat-as-a-pancake Rhode Island. That’s my idea of a good time.
And so, just two years later, I had accomplished my modest goal: I had visited all 13 Audubon refuges in the Ocean State. And I had some thoughts on my experience.
What follows is my very unserious, very uninformed ranking of each property I hiked. A word of warning: I don’t know much about birds, so I’m judging these nature spots not based on the species I spotted but rather on beauty of natural surroundings, variety of scenery and peacefulness.
13. Lathrop, Westerly
It’s not just that the driveway is so unevenly paved as to cause panic for any car without high clearance. It isn’t simply that the parking lot and trail entrance is strewn with empty nips, Doritos containers, Gatorade bottles and other high-school hangout detritus. It’s also that the Lathrop Wildlife Refuge’s trail barely even exists, at just 1,000 feet long — making you wonder why you even bothered to brave the unsafe driveway and dodge all that trash. The end of the trail yields a so-so view across Winnapaug Pond, but locals know there are far better views to be had just down the road.
12. Davis Memorial, North Kingstown
If I were to write solely about Davis’s trail and its immediate surroundings, I’d rate this refuge much higher. There’s a short uphill jaunt to the historical, yet impressively maintained, Davis family cemetery. There’s a pleasant river running through the property, where beavers build dams and people are permitted to launch their kayaks. And the dirt path undulates gently throughout, providing a slightly more blood-pumping experience than most Ocean State walks offer. However, two glaring issues prevented me from enjoying my walk: The power lines and the noise. The roar of busy Route 4 is, unfortunately, omnipresent — and several hulking electrical pylons disrupt an otherwise lovely forest walk at the peak of the property.
11. Waterman Pond, Coventry
This has to be the Audubon Society’s most undervisited and unmaintained property in the state. Waterman Pond’s 1-mile out-and-back trail isn’t inherently unpleasant — there are babbling brooks to cross, skunk cabbages and mushrooms to spot, and a lovely lakeside conifer forest to stroll through at the end. But when I visited one spring weekend, it was tough to traverse due to the property’s broken boardwalks, accumulation of downed trees and other signs of severe lack of upkeep. Plus, there is absolutely no off-street parking, which makes access challenging.
10. Powder Mill Ledges, Smithfield
This is where the state Audubon Society’s headquarters are located, and it’s also where a heck of a lot of schoolchildren visit on field trips. I’m sure the kids have fun on their guided tours — there are birdhouses, creeks and other fun features to engage with — but this unguided adult wasn’t too impressed. Powder Mill Ledges is a fairly small property in the middle of a densely populated area, which means it’s hard to escape the noise of traffic no matter how far into the woods you walk. Accessing the eastern half of the property means traversing an ugly strip of power lines, and in one corner of the refuge, it’s easy to spot a shopping center and the busy lanes of Highway 44.
9. Lewis-Dickens, Block Island
My husband and I got hopelessly lost searching for this property — an indication of just how seldom visited it is. While carefully navigating Block Island’s uneven gravel roads by bike, we discovered that the refuge’s location is listed incorrectly on Google Maps…and the place where the trail actually begins, according to the Audubon Society website, is marked as a private road. As a result, we felt forced to take a detour and really only explored a half-mile stretch of the refuge trail. That said, the property’s coastal scenery was stunning in June, when the wildflowers were blooming, the red-winged blackbirds were terrr-eeee-ing, and tall grasses swayed in the breeze.
8. Emilie Ruecker, Tiverton
For whatever reason, I saw more birds here than in any other Audubon refuge in the state — and I visited in early April! I’m no ornithologist, so I can’t say whether I simply got lucky or whether this spot in rural Tiverton, surrounded by farms and rolling hills, is always so rich with bird life in the early spring. Either way, I had a blast wandering through this property’s elevated boardwalks, open fields and salt marshes.
7. Fort Nature Refuge, North Smithfield
“Refuge” is right: This is the perfect spot to leave the noise and pressures of the built environment behind. Located off a lonely section of the Providence Pike, this hiking area doesn’t seem to get many visitors: I had the entire place to myself one February afternoon. But don’t let its low traffic fool you — it’s a gorgeous gem. The walk begins with an educational (and adorable) self-guided tour assembled by the nearby Boy Scout troop. After the first mile under coniferous trees, the scouts’ signposts disappear, the green canopy gives way to deciduous forests, and you’re left alone with only your thoughts, the sound of the wind rustling through the trees, the surrounding ponds’ lapping water and the occasional birdcall.
6. Claire D. McIntosh Nature Center and Aquarium, Bristol
I’ve visited this particular property several times — not because it’s the most challenging or the most scenic, but because it packs a stunning amount of variety into less than a mile of trail. The path begins at a nature center where families can learn more about seasonal bird migration, check out an insect hotel and wander through an educational garden. It winds back and forth through an open meadow filled with birdhouses that get busy in the springtime. Then it travels through a swampy forest with interpretive signage that changes depending on the season — a detail I love. Finally, it traverses a reedy salt marsh to the shore via an elevated boardwalk, where you just might spot an osprey or two.
5. Maxwell Mays, Coventry
A peaceful historical cemetery. A sunny open field busy with birds in the shoulder seasons. A mysterious stone fireplace, no doubt left behind in the wake of a house fire one or two centuries ago. A peaceful lakeshore, silent but for birdsong. Tiny streams and waterfalls everywhere. And the piece de resistance: an idyllic, isolated lakefront cottage you can actually rent from May to October. The beauty of Maxwell Mays is that you can visit when it’s warm or cold, you can walk a mile or five, and you can stay for an hour or several days — and no matter what you choose, you’ll leave feeling satisfied.
4. Touisset Marsh, Warren
As far as I can tell, this is the only Audubon refuge in the state that incorporates nature-inspired art into the visitor experience, which is why it ranks so highly for me. Designed by Leonard Yui, an architect on faculty at Roger Williams University, “Five Ecological Piers” is a series of 20-foot-tall wooden beams that feature Morse code-translated prose by five famous environmentalists who wrote about salt-marsh habitats like this one. The bored holes of the Morse code provide homes for bees, while several perches branching off the beams offer respite for birds.
3. Fisherville Brook, Exeter
This wildlife refuge is often cited as one of the state’s most beautiful places to visit in the fall. I can confirm that Fisherville Brook is a glorious place to see the leaves changing, but it’s no less lovely in other times of the year. The trails pass through both deciduous and evergreen forests and past ponds, streams and waterfalls. There’s even an open field ideal for both birdwatching and a history lesson: in the center of the field lies a cemetery where Revolutionary War Capt. John Gardner and his descendants are buried.
2. George B. Parker Woodland, Coventry
Parker offers a great variety of trails, including one that’s on the longer side and offers a bit of a blood-pumping climb (by Rhode Island standards). But that’s not the only reason why it’s special. The scenery is wonderfully varied, with trails taking hikers through open fields, over streams and swamps and under canopies of hardwood trees. And history buffs will be captivated by the trails’ intersection with Revolutionary War-era carriage roads and mysterious rock cairns whose origins still have historians stumped.
1. Long Pond Woods, Hopkinton
Almost all outdoor enthusiasts agree that Long Pond offers some of the most scenic diversity Rhode Island has to offer. First, it offers a particularly attractive tree-lined lookout point at the head of the eponymous pond — so attractive, in fact, that the view figures prominently in a scene from Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom.” Second, there’s actual elevation gain: almost immediately after the lookouts, the trail becomes a steep scramble down to the shores of the pond. Third, the surrounding forest is beautiful any time of year, with evergreens adding color to the drab New England winter landscape, rhododendrons lining parts of the trail in spring, and bright changing leaves reflecting in the placid water in fall. Just go.
