Abrams Creek Wetlands Preserve Bird and Nature Walks

About Abrams Creek Wetland

The 25-acre Abrams Creek Wetlands Preserve in Winchester, VA is a calcareous muck fen and home to over 300 plant species and 180 kinds of birds. Twenty of the Preserve’s plant species appear on Virginia’s Rare Plants List, including two species found nowhere else in the Commonwealth. In addition, no other limestone-floored wetland in Virginia has as many rare plants as Winchester’s wetlands. The Abrams Creek Wetlands are diverse. It includes marshes, which are sunny and covered by grasses and wildflowers, and swamps which are shady and filled with trees and shrubs. The Preserve’s significant plants live in the sun-filled marshes.

Calcareous muck fens take 10,000 years to form naturally and like other wetlands, they capture pollutants, keeping them out of drinking water. Because of their limestone bedrock, low acidity, and high nutrient levels, calcareous fens are one of the rarest natural communities in the U.S. Mineral-rich groundwater and a sun-filled habitat allow distinct species of plants to thrive.