This column was originally published on SaportaReport.
Spring is almost here, y’all! Some days it feels like summer, others we’re back to winter. But on March 20th, spring will have officially sprung!
The beauty of living in such a forested city means that you don’t have to go far to enjoy the flora and fauna that come alive this time of year. At Park Pride, we caught up with our friends at Birds Georgia, Trees Atlanta, and the Georgia Native Plant Society to chat about what’s going on with our birds, trees, and native plants this time of year — and the best parks to find them!
This is an especially exciting time for our winged friends, according to Birds Georgia Executive Director Adam Betuel, because it’s the beginning of nesting season. By late March, our local species that don’t migrate far or at all — like the Eastern Bluebird and the Carolina Chickadee — have established their nesting sites and may even have begun laying eggs. During this period, some species are returning to Georgia to find their partners and raise their young, while other transient birds that flew further south stop in Georgia on their way back home up north.
Adam’s favorite in-town bird-watching spots are Piedmont Park and Cascade Springs Nature Preserve. Piedmont is home to 160+ species, and Cascade Springs features an impressive tree canopy and the Utoy Creek, which makes it a great place to find more elusive birds like the Kentucky warbler.
The city is alive with a chorus of bird songs right now, but if you’re trying to identify a bird using its call alone, you may be deceived! The Atlanta area has three species that are known to mimic the songs of other species, including the Northern Mockingbird, the Gray Catbird, and our state bird, the Brown Thrasher. To learn how to tell them apart, click here.
To help our local birds this time of year, Adam recommends turning off excess outdoor lights. Many birds migrate at night and are attracted to lights, which brings them to urban areas with additional threats — including glass collision, which is fatal for up to one billion birds in the U.S. each year. While folks are planning their gardens, Adam also recommends incorporating native plantings.
“Those native plants are going to provide the ideal nesting sites, and, more importantly, the food sources that our birds need,” he said. “Our native insects need those plants, and our birds rely heavily on those native insects. Birds need those food sources in high quantity and quality.”
Trilliums are one of the natives that are a fan-favorite in the springtime, according to Jeremiah Wood, board member of the Georgia Native Plant Society – Intown Atlanta Chapter. In fact, Georgia has more indigenous trillium species than any other state. So many of their parts come in threes, which inspired the name, and they are especially fun to find because they only flower for a short while and are gone by summer. Little Sweet Betsy is the one most commonly spotted around the Atlanta area.
The Eastern Redbuds have also been making a flashy appearance, with the small native tree boasting its beautiful pink blooms, and it’s especially popular among our pollinators. There are other plants that deserve similar glory, Jeremiah noted, like the common blue violet.
“A lot of people think of it as a lawn weed, but that little guy is popping up everywhere right now, and it supports a ton of pollinators,” Jeremiah said.
To see a host of native plants, Jeremiah recommends heading over to Atlanta’s Southside Park and, a little outside of the city, Arabia Mountain. To help our native plants thrive, Jeremiah recommends joining a volunteer day to help remove invasives from our parks or getting to work in your own backyard!
“The more you can remove invasive species in public spaces and your yards, the more those spots will be reclaimed by natives,” he said. “It takes more than a village — it takes a city.”
And what were the trees that make up our City in the Forest doing during winter? While it might seem like they weren’t doing much, looks can be deceiving; they’re hard at work conserving water and energy, while also converting stored starch into sugar, which acts as a natural antifreeze. After withstanding the cold winter, in the spring, they begin pushing out leaves and catkins, which are flower clusters that produce and release pollen.
But the beginning of spring isn’t so simple in Atlanta. As we all know, our city has several false springs followed by cold snaps before we reach the real thing. While this temperature fluctuation doesn’t hurt the trees, Trees Atlanta Director of Planting Alex Beasley said their blooms may fall off sooner than usual, meaning fewer pollinators can benefit from them.
“While the early spring buds and flowers are the ones that get the limelight early, often they pay the price with a late March freeze and then everything else takes over,” Alex said. “The magnolias, redbuds, and fringetrees get all the glory early on, but they have to share the spotlight.”
If you’re hoping to see some blooming trees in their full glory, Alex has a unique suggestion — John Lewis Freedom Parkway.
“This is an ongoing project for Trees Atlanta, but I promise this isn’t a shameless plug! John Lewis Freedom Parkway as it leads into Freedom Park is a very nontraditional way to enjoy flora and fauna. What we’ve tried to do, with the help of partners, is transform that fairly barren grass landscape into something beautiful. We have huge pockets of trees, shrubs, and native grasses; we’re all stuck in the car sometimes, and I think this is a cool way to highlight a lot of our native species.”
He added: “This spring, I encourage you to take a moment, look around, and take a deep breath … I hope you don’t sneeze!”
For more ideas about which parks to explore this spring, check out Park Pride’s 2025 Spring & Summer Park Picks! You’re also invited to join us at our upcoming Second Friday Walk in the Park on Friday, April 10, at Arabia Mountain. See you in a park this spring!