One of the most popular birding sites in the Richmond area -- Dutch Gap Conservation Area, located adjacent to Henricus Historical Park -- has just become more accessible to wildlife watchers and hikers.

A newly constructed footbridge has created a loop of roughly 3½ miles that starts behind the Henricus Historical Park visitor center.

Until now, foot traffic followed a linear path along the tidal lagoon of the old James River course to a dead end that was tantalizingly close to the trail's starting point just across a narrow channel. Walkers had to return on the same path, an 8-mile hike overall.

Dutch Gap, an 810-acre preserve, is part of the Chesterfield County Department of Parks and Recreation. In addition to the bridge, new picnic shelters and fishing piers have been installed. New signs and prominent maps have been posted to help visitors navigate the tidal lagoon, where they'll see partially submerged wooden barges, remnants of gravel mining operations.

Throughout the habitat of the tidal lagoon, you'll find forest stands of pine and hardwoods; a thick understory of berry bushes and hanging vines; small, grassy, open meadows; and forest edges that attract nesting birds. Along the boundary shared with Dominion Virginia Power, a long fence is used by blue grosbeaks, indigo buntings, tree swallows, eastern bluebirds, pine warblers and several species of sparrows. Large numbers of birds nest at Dutch Gap during the summer, and mild winters draw plenty of waterfowl.

Birders who travel clockwise will find a blue heron rookery just beyond the footbridge, most likely a replacement of one that flourished along the entrance road marsh before being destroyed by storms several years ago. After crossing the footbridge, watch for a break in the treeline on your right. You'll see more than a dozen stick-nests in the treetops across the narrow channel. This is probably the best vantage point for the rookery.

During spring and early summertime, Dutch Gap is the site of two research studies of bird life in central Virginia. About halfway along the lagoon trail, you'll find a bird-banding station, part of a network of 500 Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship programs throughout North America and one of 30 in Virginia.

Julie Kacmarcik, a longtime member of the Richmond Audubon Society, and her teammates catch birds in mist nets, check their health and place a small metal band around one leg before releasing them. Their collected data are sent to a national organization that monitors how bird populations are faring from year to year.

As you walk the lagoon trail, you'll see many small nesting boxes on poles that dot the shoreline. The boxes are part of a 70-box network tended by Bob Reilly, a Virginia Commonwealth University professor, to help endangered prothonotary warblers thrive in our area. In early May, he had counted more than 300 eggs in his boxes. On a spring morning, you're apt to see him in his motorized canoe, checking on how each warbler family is progressing.

Contact Jerry Uhlman at flyways@verizon.net.