🌿Guided Nature Walks & Tours

In Central Park every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 5:00pm to 6:15 pm

Select Saturdays and Sundays from 12:00 to 1:30 pm

Come with family, friends, or alone to explore Central Park’s little-known natural treasures! Meet like-minded people and escape New York City for a time in an immersive and enjoyable experience—and see the world in a whole new way!

On New York Wild Walks, we will explore the plants and animals of Central Park’s forested ravine, streams, ponds, and wildlife gardens together—through many lenses: experiential, sensory, artistic, intellectual, and ethnobotanical. We’ll approach the habitats, landscape, and ecosystem as caretakers, storytellers, and scientists, uncovering how human life is intimately connected to plants, fungi, and wildlife in subtle and surprising ways.

We’ll examine the properties and aromas of different species, their anatomy and reproductive structures, their pollination strategies, and their relationships with the pollinators, fungi, and wildlife they have evolved alongside over thousands—and even millions—of years.

By the end of the walk, you’ll have a deeper understanding of Central Park’s natural history, a renewed sense of connection to the land beneath your feet, and an awakened appreciation for the living world.

On every walk, you’ll:

• Smell, taste, and touch plants while learning their edible, medicinal, and cultural uses.

• Observe birds, butterflies, bees, turtles, frogs,and coyotes

• Learn about the park’s rich landscape architecture, aesthetic design, and art

• Hear folklore, mythology, and stories about the relationships between plants and animals.

• Learn about Indigenous knowledge, especially the Matinnecock and other tribal nations who once stewarded this land.

• Experience nature creatively. Guided nature walks are an art. Experience Central Park through poetry, mythology, storytelling and comic relief.

These experiences invite you to slow down, notice details, and leave with a renewed connection to the natural world.

🌿Saturday and Sunday Walk Descriptions

Our upcoming nature walks shift focus and take place in different parts of Central Park, exploring its most diverse and beautiful habitats and scenic locations and the richest features it has to offer. Each walk, though starting at the same location, we rotate our route so participants can experience different landscapes and stories of the park.

Secret Lives of Plants

Select Saturdays

Meeting Time: 12:00PM - 1:30PM

Meet Location: The Harlem Meer & Conservatory Gardens (106th Street and 5th Avenue Entrance to Central Park)

These explorations invite both adults and children to immerse themselves in nature and engage with curious plant species in many ways: sensorially (through smell, taste, and touch), intellectually, taxonomically, artistically (through crafts and photography), and through observations of how plants interact with animals and humans. Through millenia of passed-down human experience and relationship with the land, stories, mythology, folklore, and through hands-on observation —- our walks open a space for exploring the ancient spiritual dimensions of plant-human connections. By connecting to specific places on each walk, we also learn about the ancient and ongoing relationships between the Indigenous Matinnecock and other tribal nations that stewarded the lands we now live and walk upon. Exploring the edible, medicinal, historic, and spiritual aspects of our most interesting plant species—and the stories they tell—brings us closer to nature and connects us to our roots and our ancestors across cultures and continents.

As we learn to identify and investigate the secret lives of plants and animals, we uncover how human life is intimately connected with the fragile forests, fields, streams, and beaches. We’ll see how the ecological communities we live in and around sustain us, keep us healthy, and how we can participate in their conservation for future generations.

Join a guided nature walk in Central Park—perfect for families, friends, or individuals looking to explore NYC’s green spaces. Together, we’ll discover New York’s little-known flora, fauna, geology, and land-use history.

Exploring Earth as a System:

Rocks, Soils, Plants, Water, and Deep Time, and What it Means for us Today

Select Sundays

Meeting Time: 12:00 PM to 1:30PM

Location: Meet at 106th Street and Central Park West Entrance to Central Park

Central Park and New York City are built on a foundation of ancient geology — mountain building from colliding continental plates — events that occurred 400 million and a billion years ago. These events created mountain ranges as high as the Himalayas that have slowly eroded and left only the roots, rocks originally created and folded under intense pressures many miles underground. These same geological processes that we see happening today, happened in the past, and have shaped the landscape that we see today. On your walk, you’ll see how glaciers, bedrock, water, climate change, humans, and time have together formed the thin layer of soil upon which most life depends.

Highlights in Central Park include:

• Identifying Manhattan Schist, Fordham Gneiss, metamorphic rocks and the connection between rocks and building patterns in NYC

• Glacial scouring and deposition, glacial erratics, and development

• Exploring the connections between rocks, soil, air, and life

• How habitat loss, invasive species, pollution, climate change, and the unsustainable use of resources is impacting NYC’s biodiversity

Weekday Walks: Tuesday, Wed., Thursday

Tuesdays: 5:00 - 6:15

The Diverse Habitats that Make Central Park Unique.

Meets at 106th Street and Central Park West, Entrance to the Great Hill at Central Park

• Great Hill and Harlem Meer – Discover forested trails, shaded streams, and the wildlife that thrives in the park’s northernmost habitats, meadows, and Harlem Meer.

The Secret Lives of Plants

The Secret Lives of Plants

Wednesdays: 5:00 - 6:15PM

• The Conservatory Garden and Harlem Meer - The Secret Lives of Plants - Join us for a unique, sensory-rich nature walk that begins in the most formally cultivated garden in New York City—the Conservatory Garden—and unfolds into newly renovated native plant wonder that is the Harlem Meer.

The Diverse Habitats that Make Central Park Unique.

Thursdays: 5:00 - 6:15 PM

• The Ramble & Boat Pond – Wander through Central Park’s most famous woodland gem, filled with migratory birds, native wildflowers, and a winding stream and ponds with paths that take us from the Boat Pond by Bethesda Fountain. Meets at 72nd Street and Central Park West on Thursdays from 4:00pm to 5:30pm (subject to change).

By joining weekly, you’ll build familiarity with the park’s ecology—learning how its forests, ponds, and meadows change with the seasons. Whether you come once or return often, each walk offers something new to discover.

📜 After the Walk – Words from the Woods

Each participant receives a follow-up email report with:

• A full list of plants and wildlife observed.

• Photos and notes from the walk.

• Links to resources for learning more.

Reports are also posted on our Words from the Woods blog, creating a growing archive of NYC nature discoveries.

A Monarch Butterfly Nectaring on Milkweed A Monarch release ceremony

Long Island Walk Location Settings and Hosts

To date, nature walks have been located in Nassau and Suffolk counties. The walks are supported by local organizations and community groups including the Port Washington Monarch Butterfly Alliance, Transition Town Port Washington, ReWild Long Island, Sands Point Preserve, PW Green, Baxter's Pond Foundation, the Unitarian Universalist Church, the Science Museum of Long Island, the Brentwood Public Library, and the Coindre Hall Park Community. This virtual map allows the viewer to dive deep into the geography and ecology of diverse locations where nature Dave has hosted or will be hosting walks. For more detailed information about what Washington's habitats and biodiversity, see ReWIld Port Washington.

About Nature Dave

David Jakim has 15 years of experience in field biology and ten years of award-winning experience guiding nature walks for diverse groups including adults, children, teachers, and classes. With an M.S. in Environmental Geoscience, an M.A. in Earth Science Education, Jakim has a broad background in earth science, ecology, botany, and is a top expert on the local habitats, flora, and fauna on the Port Washington Peninsula, NY. In addition, Jakim is familiar with the biodiversity and ecology of Long Island and NYC. He is also a tutor in math, science, and writing.

Working with Queens College since 2013, he has been training teachers and taking classes of students from public schools Into the Woods to have learning experiences in nature and to conduct citizen science and authentic environmental research. He has been leading guided nature walks at Sands Point Preserve from 2018 through 2020 and with the Brentwood Public Library from 2021 through the present as well as the Port Washington Public Library in 2025. Nature Dave frequently receives testimonials from both children and adults that “this is the best nature walk I have ever been on, or “this is the best day of my life!” Sharing these experiences is a driver for people to want to attend future walks.

Jakim is also founder of ReWild Long Island 501(c)(3), the Port Washington Coalition for Biodiversity, the Coalition to Protect and Preserve the Hempstead Harbor Woods, Port Washington, NY, the NYC Monarch Butterfly Alliance with Queens College, Co-chairperson of the Village of New Paltz Environmental Conservation Education, and currently serves as the Director of the Biodiversity Protection, Restoration and Protection with Transition Town Port Washington 501(c)(3).

Jakim has ten years of experience researching, mapping, describing, and protecting biodiversity on the Port Washington peninsula and around New York. Jakim’s M.A. in Earth Science Education and decade of experience working with citizen science programs at Queens College have provided him with skills to select ideal habitats for guided nature walks and learning. Every day, Jakim can be found studying the flora and fauna and picking his wild salad in Central Park.