The overview image below depicts North Alabama Bend, with the US Army Corps of Engineer boundary. The magenta lines represent the generally maintained/mowed trails that are easily walked. Note I've primarily done the lower loop, and access to the river at point "A". When doing the north loop, I haven't seen any well maintained paths that allow you to easily penetrate the heavily forested area on the western half of North Alabama Bend. Note I saw "well maintained" on this graphic, because there ARE additional rough footpaths other than what's shown here. "Rough" means that sometimes those footpaths are barely distinguishable from the surrounding vegetation.
And that is why I have generally stayed on the lower loop, and river access point "A"!! I've done the walk to "B", but that little spur to the river 1) right now ends at a place where there's much less open visibility than at point A, and 2) that spur is NOT well maintained right now (July 2020 as I write this!), and I ended up just crawling with ticks when I came out of there. I'll do a lot to see a bird, but it's got to be a REALLY special bird for me to put up with pulling a couple of dozen ticks off my body after spending 10 minutes bushwhacking through grass and shrub!
Fortunately the lower loop has been mowed and generally well-maintained when I've been there, and it provides good views (and sounds) of both the woodland birds, and the grassland birds along the loop. The lower loop also provides easy access to point A, which with the current state of the river (again, July 2020 as I write this), provides excellent views of the extensive sandbars, and the specialty birds that draw me to this site (Least Tern, Piping Plover).
Note there is an additional parking area at the far northeast corner of the property. It's perfectly usable but it's a longer hike to get to any forested or riverine habitat from the north parking lot.
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SOUTH DAKOTA BIRDS AND BIRDING - LOCATIONS OF WEBSITE VISITORS
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