Broad Cove Preserve joins New York State Birding Trail in Aquebogue

Broad Cove Preserve became the first North Fork site added to New York State’s Birding Trail, giving Aquebogue a new outdoor draw and adding another piece to Suffolk County’s east-end recreation economy. The 100-acre waterfront preserve on Flanders Bay sits at 764 Hubbard Avenue and now offers trails, accessible parking and public access on land that once could have been turned into a much denser development.

The Birding Trail is not a single path but a network of birding locations, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation has said accessibility is one of the criteria used when sites are considered. At Broad Cove, visitors can move through roughly 25 acres of tidal wetlands and along more than 8,000 feet of shoreline on Terry Creek and Broad Cove. The preserve is also home to white-tailed deer, northern long-eared bats, osprey and eastern wild turkey, all within the Atlantic Flyway, which helps explain why the site fits so naturally into a birding circuit.

That mix of habitat and access gives the East End another stop that can pull people out for the day, which can translate into more foot traffic for nearby farm stands, small businesses and restaurants on the North Fork. The preserve’s location, bounded by Flanders Bay, Hubbard Avenue, the Long Island Rail Road and Overlook Drive, also places it beside both a state-identified disadvantaged community and a potential environmental justice community, making the access piece more than a parking lot and a trail map.

Governor Kathy Hochul announced a permanent conservation easement covering about 100 acres at Broad Cove in December 2025. The state said the protection keeps the property open space in perpetuity and pointed to the preserve’s accessible parking area and network of trails as part of the public benefit. The easement locks in a different future for a parcel that had once been zoned Tourism/Resort Campus and approved for 500 condominiums before the Peconic Land Trust bought it from Walo LLC on Dec. 31, 2021.

The land trust raised $11.5 million for the purchase and another $500,000 for carrying costs, preserving a former duck farm that had long been eyed for development. Broad Cove’s addition to the state birding trail reflects that investment, but it also extends Suffolk’s pitch as a place where shoreline land still can be conserved, opened to the public and used to support outdoor tourism instead of subdivision.

The site carries a local history that deepens the story beyond recreation. Orlesha Banks, whose family roots run through Bell Town across the street, was among the hikers on the property, tying the preserve to one of Riverhead’s most significant heritage communities. Bell Town was built beginning about 90 years ago by Black and Native American families, including the Bell brothers, grandsons of enslaved people who migrated from Powhatan County, Virginia during the Great Migration of the 1930s. The Bell family acquired 16 acres and created 32 residential lots, and Broad Cove’s new public role now sits beside that longer history of land, migration and survival.