The Trinity River Audubon Center at Dawn

Six Thousand Acres of Wilderness That Dallas Almost Threw Away

The Trinity River Audubon Center sits on the Great Trinity Forest, a 6,000-acre bottomland hardwood forest in the floodplain of the Trinity River in southeast Dallas, and it is one of the largest urban forests in the United States and also one of the least known, possibly because Dallas - a city that celebrates its skyline and its steakhouses and its shopping - has not yet figured out how to brag about a swamp. But the swamp is magnificent, and I went to see it at dawn on a Saturday in April, when the migrating warblers were passing through and the forest floor was carpeted in spring wildflowers.

The center itself is a LEED-certified building designed to look like a bird in flight, which is either a beautiful architectural gesture or a dad joke rendered in steel and glass, depending on your mood. The trails begin at the back door and descend through prairie restoration into the forest, and within five minutes of leaving the parking lot, I was standing in a canopy of bur oak, pecan, and green ash so dense that the early morning light reached the ground in scattered coins, like the forest was paying me in small change to keep walking.

The main loop trail is about two miles and follows elevated boardwalks through the wetland sections, where the water is black and still and reflects the trees above with the fidelity of a mirror. I saw a green heron on the first boardwalk - a small, hunched bird the color of dark jade, perched on a fallen log and watching the water with the intensity of someone reading a very important text message. It struck and came up with a minnow and swallowed it with a single convulsive gulp, then resumed its surveillance. I have never seen a creature more committed to its work.

The spring migration makes April and May the best months for birding here. The forest sits on the Central Flyway, and the warblers, tanagers, and vireos that pass through use the canopy as a rest stop on their journey north. I counted fourteen species in two hours, including a prothonotary warbler - a bird the color of a lemon that prefers swampy forest and is uncommon enough in Dallas that the other birders on the trail stopped to look when I mentioned it. The prothonotary was feeding in a tupelo tree overhanging the water, its yellow body vivid against the dark bark, unbothered by the attention.

The trails are flat, well-maintained, and suitable for all fitness levels. The boardwalks can be slippery when wet. Bring binoculars and insect repellent - the mosquitoes in the bottomland are abundant and motivated. The center is open Tuesday through Saturday, and there is a small admission fee that supports the Audubon Society's conservation work in the forest.

What the Trinity River Audubon Center offers is a correction - a reminder that Dallas is not just a city of glass towers and interstate highways but also a city built on a floodplain, on river mud, on a forest that has been here since the last ice age and is still, against considerable odds, here. The forest does not care about the skyline. It is busy being a forest. And on a spring morning, with the warblers singing and the water reflecting the oaks and the light falling in pieces through the canopy, it is the most beautiful place in Dallas, and it is not close.