By Car: Take Hylan Blvd to Buffalo Street. Turn from Hylan Blvd into the park. The first parking lot once you turn in is where you can find the trail head for the blue-dot trail. As you follow the road into the heart of the park you can stop at various parking lots. The first large parking lots on your left provides access to the Salt Flats. At the oppisite end of this lot is the field where horned lark and snow bunting are found in winter. Further down the main road are two lots where you can most easily view the Great Kills Harbor. Just before the pavement ends are the parking lots for the bath house. This is the only parking area for Crooke's Point. DO NOT drive down the unpaved road, this is a permit only area, and you WILL get ticketed without a permit.
By Public: Take the S78 or S79 busline along Hylan Blvd, and get off at Buffalo Street. Follow directions above to different areas of the park.
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Great Kills Park, part of Gateway National Recreation Area, is a wonderful place to visit any time of the year. In the winter months a great diversity of waterfowl and gulls can be found in Great Kills Harbor, and on the Raritan Bay. A walk out to Crooke's Point is the best way to get a good sample of both the waterfowl, and land birds that are here in this season. Snow bunting and horned lark spend most of the winter in the mowed grass area near the play grounds. In early spring waterfowl numbers increase in the bay and harbor, and north-bound passerines start to fill the woods. By late spring, the waterfowl have left, but the land bird numbers peak. A walk along the blue-dot trail that parallels Hylan Blvd is the best way the find song bird migrants. The entrance to the blue-dot trail is located at the parking lots at the corner of Hylan Blvd, and Buffalo Street. Summer slows down, but most of the nesting species are still easy to find. As fall sets in, Great Kills Park becomes a trap for south bound sparrows, thrushes, and warbler. A morning walk around the baseball fields can yield up to 10 species of sparrows. By late fall, waterfowl and northern gannets return to Raritan Bay and are best seen from the Salt Flats which are accessed by parking in the first parking lots along the main road.
For more information about this wonderful park, visit Great Kills Park
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