Join Audubon Miami Valley for a field trip to Mount Airy Forest Saturday morning.

The Mount Airy Forest, established in 1911, is just a 45-minute drive from Oxford and was one of the earliest urban reforestation projects in the United States. It is also the largest park in Cincinnati’s park system. It covers an impressive 1,471 acres and includes natural areas, planned landscapes, buildings, structures, and landscape features.

The numerous hiking trails, bridle paths, walls, gardens, pedestrian bridges, and various other improvements within Mount Airy Forest reflect the ambitious park planning and development that took place in Cincinnati in the early-to-mid-20th century. The once-barren land now includes 700 acres of reforested hardwoods, 200 acres of forested evergreens, 269 acres of wetlands, 170 acres of meadows, and a 120-acre arboretum.

The field trip, led by Sam Fitton, will leave at 7 a.m. from the former Walmart parking lot (on Locust Street next to McDonald’s) and return to Oxford in the afternoon. For those wishing to join the group at the park, projected arrival time is about 7:45 a.m. Participants are asked to pack a lunch and bring binoculars if possible.

Each month between September and June, Audubon Miami Valley sponsors a Saturday field trip to a regional site of special interest. All are welcome on AMV field trips. More information about the trips is available at http://amvohio.org/events/field-trips/.

More information about Mount Airy Forest can be found at http://www.cincinnatiparks.com/index.php/mt-airy-forest.

On Feb. 9, the Audubon field trip featured a visit to Cincinnati Nature Center in Milford. Spanning 1,025 acres, the Center’s Rowe Woods location offers more than 16 miles of hiking trails winding through the region’s natural habitats of eastern deciduous forest, fields, streams and ponds. The AMV group enjoyed a morning trail walk through the CNC nature preserve, and observed maple sugar being distilled from sap collected on the property. Birds spotted included six woodpecker and six sparrow species. Participants also visited the Center’s Nature PlayScape for children, where plants, soil, and water can be touched and manipulated, not just observed. The outing concluded with a relaxing lunch at the spacious CNC Visitor Center.