Field Trip: Katy Trail; Social: Cooper's Landing

Field trip: 1 PM; Social: ~3 PM

Contact: Ben West; benjwest@gmail.com

Join Columbia Audubon for a hybrid field trip and social event featuring a couple sections of the Katy Trail and Cooper’s Landing! Feel free to attend the field trip, the social, or both!

Our first birding location will be Columbia Wetland Unit #1, assuming water levels are suitable for shorebirds and/or waterfowl. We will meet at the McBaine Trailhead parking lot of the Katy Trail (map) at 1:00 PM. From there, we’ll walk around 1/3 of a mile out-and-back along the Katy Trail and up a small, grassy hill to Columbia Wetland Unit #1, scanning for eagles, shorebirds, swallows, and waterfowl. After the first stop, we will caravan by car to Cooper’s Landing parking lot (map), with an ETA of 2:00 PM. From there, we will plan to walk out and back along the Katy Trail north of Cooper’s Landing, planning to walk about 2 miles round trip, returning to Cooper’s Landing around 3:00 PM.

For those interested in just the social event, plan to join up with the field trip crew at Cooper’s Landing (map) around 3:00 PM. For anyone unfamiliar, it is an outdoor venue along the Missouri River that serves a variety of beverages, including beer and soft drinks; they usually have food trucks available. To find our group, look for binoculars and potentially bird plushies if we end up securing tables! If it doesn’t look like we’re there yet, feel free to text the trip leader; we probably just got caught up in some good bird activity!

Check back for updates as the trip gets closer, as details may change with shifting weather or water levels! If the weather forecast looks rainy, we will have a rain date of Saturday, April 18, 2026