Van Cortlandt Park Nature Walk: Birds, Butterflies, and Insects

Date: Saturday, June 13, 2026
Rain Date:

Leader: Ken Chaya
Transportation: Public Transportation: Participants can use public transportation to arrive at the meeting location.
Meeting Point: After your registration is confirmed, the Registrar will share directions, the exact meeting place, and time with attendees.
Schedule: Attendees should bring lunch. Exact timing will be shared closer to the event.
Relative Difficulty: While mostly flat, some parts of the terrain involve hills and steps.

Trip Description: Van Cortlandt Park is New York City’s third largest green space. It contains a variety of natural habitats within its 1,146 acres, including woodlands, marshes, meadows, and a lake. Here, we will search for Green Herons, Mute Swans, Red-winged Blackbirds, Tree Swallows, Eastern Wood-Pewees, Double-crested Cormorants, Great Egrets, Gray Catbirds, and Northern Flickers. We will also search for dragonflies and damselflies, including the Ebony Jewelwing, beetles such as the Net-winged Beetle, butterflies including the Banded Hairstreaks, and one of our prime target species, the Silvery Checkerspot butterfly. These species are only a fraction of the bird and insect species encountered during past Linnaean walks. Attendees should bring lunch, water, and insect and sun protection. There is a restroom at the beginning of our walk and another about halfway through the park with a water fountain.

Please read The Linnaean Society of New York COVID-19 Field Trip Guidelines before registering.

Registration: Registration opens at 9 am on Monday, June 1. After that time, click here to register. Registration closes at 6 pm on Wednesday, June 10. Members (and those who have applied for membership) will be prioritized over non-members.

Please read the About Our Trips page, if you’re going on a field trip for the first time. It details our field trip policies, recommends what to bring on a trip, and offers other useful information, pro tips, and tricks.

If after visiting the About Our Trips page, you still have questions, feel free to contact the Registrar via email.