Hugh Taylor Birch State Park — Attraction in Fort Lauderdale

This is a great park that I have been to many times. It was a favorite weekend stop my parents took me to as a kid. They had a wonderful train ride that we enjoyed through the natural setting. Fortunately that natural setting has been preserved for the current and future generations, but sadly, the train was removed years ago. One can still find the old trackless railroad bed within the interior of the park. The nature trails through the hardwood trees and picnic tables along the setting of the Intracoastal Waterway are fabulous. Today we used the park primarily for a different reason, beach parking. Many people use Birch Park as alternatives to garage and parallel parking along A1A. We enjoyed walking a nature trail on the way to the beach and then we found that the pedestrian tunnel under State Road A1A was closed. Iron bars with a padlock blocked the entrance. So instead, we were forced to use the crosswalk across A1A which was not nearly as safe. There is more distracted driving on the section of A1A than anywhere I know. The scenic views of the beach capture the attention of many right where this dangerous crosswalk is. The tunnel is much, much safer for park-to- beach pedestrians and needs to be re-opened. We purposely visited the day before the airshow. We do this to avoid the extremely large crowds and high cost of seeing the actual show. The Blue Angels performed their practice exercises today to the delight of everyone who knows to come the day before. The practice exercises can be seen up and down the beach from Dania to Pompano, but the advantage of seeing it from the beach in front of Birch Park is the public address announcer also sets up there to rehearse his informative descriptions for all visiting that part of the beach to hear the day before the actual event. It's an amazing exercise that all ages enjoy and we beat the big crowds and cost of what would be in place...

Me and my pup come to this park quite often! We love grabbing a bucket to pick up trash and walking the intercoastal. I’ve even thought about a yearly pass, because we enjoy the park just that much. Usually the people at the entrance of the park who take payment for entrance are all so friendly, my pup always gets a milk bone - it’s his favorite part! But while visiting around 6 pm on September 23rd - we encountered quite a hostile park ranger/employee who made the visit less than fun. We drove up and went asked if I could use Apple Pay - he said no that he doesn’t touch anyone’s phone. I said they typically just bring the card reader to the car - he then rudely replied “well that’s them, not me. You can get out and come over to the window.” I don’t have a problem at all getting out of my car and going to process at the window - it was the hateful and rude response from the older gentleman that made the interaction hostile. It seemed as though it was an inconvenience for us to be there - and there was no reason for it. If going to my local park that’s free means we don’t have to encounter that type of hostility, then great. That’s what we will do in the future. We will still come to enjoy the park - hopefully we can encounter someone who isn’t so hostile and will make our experiance there...

My partner and I picked up the Florida State Parks passport book a few years ago and have been slowly checking off all 170+ state parks. This place is absolutely gorgeous, even though I don't think we saw the entire park, maybe around half of it? It's a unique juxtaposition of urban jungle and, well, the closest Florida has to offer for actual jungle. So many unique and huge sea grapes trees and banyan trees. Thank you for including signage for the varying species of plant around the park. My forte lies more with identifying birds than plants at the moment, so it was nice to have a guide along the way. We saw a gopher tortoise (which I was surprised to see that there are habitats that far south in the state! Guess that means I need to do some more reading), but not so much of the birds. There are a few nice amenities, such as access to the beach via crosswalk or tunnel, though it looks like the tunnel is closed indefinitely for the time being; there is a restaurant, Segway and kayak rentals, a water taxi - though I don't know exactly where that goes to, as I didn't look too much into it, and plenty of paved paths for cycling and rollerblading.

While a lot of the flora were things I'd seen before, it was a very nice change of scenery from what I'm used to seeing around here in...