Flying High at Tennessee’s Birding Park

With spring underway, it’s time to talk about the birds and the bees—and Seven Islands State Birding Park, Tennessee’s newest state park and its first dedicated to birding.

About 19 miles east of Knoxville, Seven Islands is a 416-acre peninsula along the French Broad River. By nature, the property is a stopover for 144 different migratory bird species. By design, the grassland has become part sanctuary, part school, and part playground—a combination that’s been over a decade in the making.

“When I came on board, I slung a machete for 20 months straight. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was important,” remembers Justine Cucchiara, park manager for Seven Islands. When she arrived about five years ago as part of AmeriCorps, the property had already been a wildlife refuge since 2002, thanks to a joint purchase by Knox County Parks and Recreation and Seven Islands Foundation, a nonprofit land conservancy.

At that time, the vision to make Seven Islands into a true refuge for wildlife still had a ways to go before becoming reality. Formerly a cattle farm, the property teemed with non-native grasses for forage, its stream beds severely eroded. By the time Cucchiara joined Wayne Schacher, the refuge’s first manager, he had already made headway replacing acres of fescue with native grasses and planting 10,000 trees to manage riparian areas. When Cucchiara became the manager a couple of years later, she and her team spent the next three years diversifying the fields with over 20 different pollinator-friendly legumes and native wildflowers to attract bees, butterflies, and other insects.

By September 2013, when Seven Islands became the 56th Tennessee State Park, the fields flashed of yellow goldenrods, purple ironweed, and dark bluestem. A grand opening was held July 1, 2014.

“You get a primal impression that this is a good place, that it can support life,” says Cucchiara. That includes life such as the Northern bobwhite, a native quail species that at one time filled the Tennessee air with its three-whoop call. Years of habitat destruction silenced many places. Recently, the bobwhite’s call has started to return to Seven Islands—to the delight of many who fondly remember its distinctive song. 

From April through September, the public can help band birds such as the Northern bobwhite. Visitors can also fish or paddle the French Broad and bike along the park’s greenway for free from dawn to dusk. Year-round, visitors can hike and enjoy the park’s namesake pastime.

Among the long-term plans for Seven Islands is to improve the entrance garden by the blue bird barn, which is an experiential learning experiment. “We want to develop the take-home message of a ‘backyard habitat,’” Cucchiara explains. She says the ultimate goal is to inspire visitors to grow native plants at home—transforming their yards into bird sanctuaries, too.

865.407.8335; tnstateparks.com.