Birding at the Refuge Inn

The Refuge Inn is a family-owned hotel at the entrance to Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, on the Atlantic Flyway in Chincoteague, Virginia. Guests bird from the balconies, from the Wildlife Loop, and from the water — often before breakfast. A listening station on the grounds has recorded 151 species on the property since April 2025.

The twelve guides below were written here on the island by our own family. The Leonards have owned and operated the Refuge Inn since it opened in 1973, and we were taking visitors out on the waters around Chincoteague for years before that.

We put these guides together because we can’t sit down with every guest who asks what is out there this month. Printed copies are available at the front desk — take one on your way out.

Refuge Inn founder Don Leonard started Island Cruises in the 1960s, running tours aboard the Osprey, a 50-passenger wooden boat retrofitted from an old fishing vessel. His daughter Donna took over the business in the early eighties and ran it through the nineties, with her brother Arthur as her captain and Arthur’s daughter Cynthia aboard most days. Arthur’s sons Hunter and Ayden run the trips now.

Cynthia writes the monthly guides. As a young child she was out on the nature tours four hours a day, most days, and she has been collecting what goes into them ever since — which birds show up in the pines in March, where the ospreys nest, what comes over the water in January. The guides came first; the listening station only confirms what she already knew.

What makes the refuge unusual is how much changes in a short distance. Salt marsh, freshwater impoundments, loblolly pine and maritime forest, and open ocean beach all sit within a few miles of one another, which is why the species list runs as long as it does. The impoundments are managed for the birds that use them, so what is on the water in October is not what was there in May. Each of the places below is a little different, and they are all within a few minutes of the inn.

The loop runs 3.2 paved miles around the moist soil impoundment, and it is the best waterfowl and raptor watching on the island. Walkers and cyclists have it to themselves until 3pm, when it opens to cars until dusk.

The trail runs 1.75 miles through pine and maritime forest, or about 2.2 miles with the Pony Overlook spur. Flat and paved. This is the warbler trail, and the one to walk with the Merlin app running.

Expect swans, geese and ducks in winter, and waders in summer. The culvert on Beach Road is one of our favorite spots on the island.

Beach Road begins just past the inn, after the Museum of Chincoteague, and runs to the refuge entrance and on out to the beach. A car makes a good blind, and the marsh birding along it is excellent twice over: on the stretch between the inn and the refuge entrance, and again just before you reach the recreational beach. Inside the refuge, the Wildlife Loop opens to vehicles at 3pm and stays open until dusk, which is the easiest way to reach the best waterfowl water on the island without walking.

The Hook reopens around September 1, once the piping plover chicks have fledged, and closes March 15. Three to nine miles on soft sand depending how far you go, with the best shorebird numbers of the year and the best shelling. More on the Hook →

Migration is the reason to come in spring and fall. Semipalmated Sandpipers, Ruddy Turnstones and Black-bellied Plovers stage on the flats. Red Knots pass through from mid-May into June on their way to the Arctic and are gone again quickly.

Summer belongs to the terns. Royal, Least, Common and Forster’s Terns work the surf and the cove from May into October, and Black Skimmers cut the shallows at the waterline, often close enough to watch without binoculars. Brown Pelicans line out over the breakers. Sanderlings chase the wash, and American Oystercatchers and Willets hold the tideline all day.

Winter puts the birds on the water rather than the sand. Scan offshore for Northern Gannets diving from November into April, Red-throated and Common Loons, Surf and Black Scoters, Long-tailed Ducks and Red-breasted Mergansers. Dunlin work the tide line in flocks. A scope earns its keep here.

Piping Plovers nest on this beach from March into September. That is why the Hook closes on March 15 and reopens once the chicks have fledged, usually around September 1. Watch for the posted closures and give them room.

Cowboy Cruise Company, run by Hunter and Ayden, takes birding trips into the Assateague Channel, the inlet, and the marshes and mudflats around the Hook. Captain Hunter is a William & Mary trained biologist who spent several seasons at VIMS, and he grew up in these marshes.

His advice on timing: book the last two hours of the falling tide into low tide. Low water exposes the mudflats and you get birds actively feeding, including the rarities; as the tide drops further they concentrate, which makes them easier to see from the boat. High tide is easier viewing but usually commoner species.

On Chincoteague itself, the Island Nature Trail has a paved, accessible loop with benches and interpretive signs, and no entrance fee — see Birding on Chincoteague Island above.

In the refuge, over on Assateague, every trail is paved except the Bivalve Trail, so wheels go almost anywhere, though tree roots make for some small bumps. The Wildlife Loop also opens to vehicles from 3pm until dusk, which puts the best waterfowl viewing on the island within reach without walking, and the Beach Road overlooks work from the roadside.

A boat trip can be arranged with advance notice; ask the front desk when you book. Read our guide to accessible outdoor adventures →

If you are planning around mobility needs, our accessibility page has the detail on accessible rooms, parking, and getting around the property.

Refuge sunrise photograph by Steve Hillebrand, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Species data from the Refuge Inn PUC station on BirdWeather, identified by BirdNET (Cornell Lab of Ornithology).