This is a small, neighborhood park with a single baseball diamond, pickleball court, and a few picnic tables. It has ample parking (presuming there isn’t a Little League game being played at the diamond). The birding is essentially confined to the edges of the park. The grassy area might draw in the occasional Killdeer or flock of Canada Geese, but is not expansive enough to lure in much else. The hotspot only lists 63 species–which is probably a fair representation considering how little it has been birded. That said, increasing the birding effort isn’t likely to add species at a rapid rate.
The best feature of this park is probably the view of open sky. If one was unable to get to a ridge on a good fall hawk flight, Academy Hill Park could suffice as a decent surrogate. This writer has spent several hours scanning the sky from this park, hoping for a March Chimney Swift, or a Mississippi Kite, or some other notable species, but has only been rewarded with an unidentified, vexing flock of white birds, seen in late March.
Owner/Manager: Town of Warrenton
eBird Hotspot: Academy Hill Park
—Todd Day, February 2025