The Crane Calendar Old Marsh Shares With the Marsh Next Door

The Old Marsh clubhouse holds a collection of antique clubs that dates to the mid-1700s. It also has a resident that predates the course's first tee time: the Florida sandhill crane. The club's own description says the bird's trumpeting call carries across the marshes and its nests can be seen along the edges of the course.

Those cranes sit on the managed side of a much larger wetland. A few minutes west on PGA Boulevard, Palm Beach County keeps 13,025 acres of the same kind of country open to the public from sunrise to sunset, every day of the year. Over the next eight weeks, the cranes on both sides of the gate switch to the same calendar.

Where the Fairways End and the Wetlands Begin

Old Marsh was established in 1987 on land west of Jog Road and north of PGA Boulevard. The course is designed to keep the wetlands untouched. According to the club, all water on the course drains into canals or a series of retention ponds and never into the adjacent wetlands. Old Marsh has been a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary through Audubon International since April 1998 and still holds that designation. When Pete Dye and his family renovated the course in 2016, the club says the work left the natural wetlands and the surrounding wildlife untouched.

That separation explains why the cranes stay. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says sandhill cranes have adapted to habitat loss by foraging and nesting on golf courses and in subdivisions. They are drawn to open mowed grass, water features, and foods such as acorns, nutsedge, earthworms, mole crickets and turf grubs. Old Marsh supplies the turf and the water, and the protected wetland next to it supplies the rest. On the map, Loxahatchee Slough Natural Area lies north and south of PGA Boulevard about 2.2 miles west of Florida's Turnpike, and it preserves nine native Florida ecosystems, including depression marsh, slough marsh and wet prairie. The county calls it the headwaters of the Loxahatchee Wild and Scenic River.

The Same Bird, Two Populations

The cranes seen on the course all year are the resident subspecies. FWC counts 4,000 to 5,000 Florida sandhill cranes statewide, and none of them migrate. Every winter they are joined by about 25,000 greater sandhill cranes, a larger subspecies that nests in the Great Lakes region. In November and December those northern flocks more than double the state's crane population, and they leave in March and April.

The local pairs start nesting in that same window. Read together, the state's dates give Old Marsh a four-stage season:

1. Now through November. Resident pairs and small groups are on their own. FWC says local cranes are usually seen in pairs or very small groups.
2. December 1. FWC's breeding season opens and runs through May 1.
3. Late February. A TCPalm report from March 2026 put average egg-laying dates in South Central Florida at February 22 to 24. Most Florida eggs are laid between January and May, and some clutches arrive as early as December or as late as August.
4. About a month later. A pair usually lays two eggs and incubates them for 32 days, and the young can walk away from the nest with their parents within 24 hours of hatching.

FWC describes nests as mats of vegetation about two feet across, built in shallow water. When the club notes nests along the course edges, it means the wet margins where the managed ground meets the wetland. Courtship looks like dancing, with jumping, running and wing flapping. The display usually comes before the nest, so a dancing pair on a winter morning is likely the first sign of where a nest will be built.

Three Ways In Off PGA Boulevard

Loxahatchee Slough has a main entrance at 11855 Beeline Highway, which offers a paved trail, a covered observation platform, a fishing pier, an observation tower and part of the Ocean to Lake Hiking Trail. From Old Marsh, the closer entrances are on PGA Boulevard itself:

• Karen T. Marcus Sandhill Crane Access Park, 8175 PGA Boulevard. This entrance has parking, restrooms, an observation tower and access to the Jeaga Wildways multiuse trail, which runs along an improved berm on the east side of the C-18 Canal. South of PGA the trail is paved, and north of PGA it is surfaced with shell rock. Palm Beach Gardens opened the 1.5-acre park in 2006 and renamed it in 2012 for Karen T. Marcus, the county commissioner first elected in 1984 who was honored for 28 years in office and for her work to preserve environmental lands.
• Kayak and Canoe Launch, 8311 PGA Boulevard. This launch has its own parking and starts a two-mile, one-way paddle trail through the natural area on the west side of the C-18 Canal. Catch-and-release fishing is allowed along the way.
• The Bluegill Trail north to Riverbend. County records describe a 5.5-mile section of trail that runs from just north of PGA Boulevard to just south of Riverbend Park and connects the crane access park with Riverbend. In 2024 the county requested fiscal 2025 funds to repair potholes and depressions along this section.

Riverbend, at 9060 Indiantown Road in Jupiter, is where all of this links up. It has nearly 10 miles of compacted-shell hiking and biking trails, and the county treats it as the hub of the Jeaga Wildways, a system of four long-distance multiuse trails that connect 10 publicly owned lands. Audubon Society of the Everglades lists Riverbend as a place to look for sandhill cranes, wild turkeys and migrating warblers. The southern route is cut short for now. The county's Jeaga Wildways page reports that construction on Northlake Boulevard has closed the trail connection between the Bluegill Trail and Grassy Waters Preserve. The county's road report issued October 2, 2026 still lists the Northlake widening east and west of Bee Line Highway, with lane shifts and periodic closures.

Why the Perimeter Trails Work in October

October is still the wet part of the year in the Slough. The county warns that summer and fall make the site very wet for hiking, and it recommends mud boots or the multiuse trails, which stay high and dry along the edge of the property. The county puts the rainy season at June through November and says the depression marshes in the region can hold up to three feet of water in those months.

Sandhill Crane Wetlands is a separate county site with a similar name. The county's natural areas index lists it among sites without public use, and its own page notes there is no designated parking. The Karen T. Marcus access park at 8175 PGA Boulevard is the public entrance.

The Slough is also home to more than cranes. In September 2025 the county's environmental staff counted 173 wading-bird nests in the Slough's rookery, mostly herons and egrets. The county also manages the land with fire. In December 2025 it ran a controlled burn there to maintain fire-adapted vegetation and reduce fuel loads.

What Changes on the Course December 1

The breeding season changes the rules on both sides of the gate. FWC's guidance for golf courses is direct:

"It is a violation to make physical contact with cranes, or to attempt to hit them with golf balls or other objects."

Feeding sandhill cranes is illegal under Florida Administrative Code 68A-4.001(6). FWC says feeding can make the birds linger, lose their fear of people and become more aggressive, and it takes reports of feeding on its Wildlife Alert Hotline at 1-888-404-3922. Cranes nest on the ground, so FWC advises staying more than 400 feet from an active nest, and that includes mowing, landscaping and tree trimming. Between now and December 1, approved methods may be used to haze adult cranes that walk up to people or pets. From December 1 through May 1, hazing is not allowed at all. It is also prohibited at any time within 400 feet of a nest or of adults with flightless young. TCPalm's spring report noted that parents may defend their nests and young, and that males can chase people or pets who come too close. FWC notes that cranes can live past 20 years, so a pair nesting near a green this winter may return to the same spot for years.

Guided Options Before the Flocks Arrive

The easiest guided option nearby is Riverbend. The county lists free weekly naturalist walks on Thursdays at 1 p.m., with reservations required, and free Saturday battlefield tours that run from October through May. A wildlife-detective program is scheduled there for October 22. The county's environmental staff also runs free Adventure Awaits outings led by naturalists. These require reservations and can change with the weather. One upcoming outing is a habitat hike at the Juno Dunes West Tract on Saturday, November 14. It covers about 2.5 miles, including a mile of sugar sand. The event listing gives two different registration dates, September 30 and October 14, so it makes sense to check the listing before planning around it. That timing puts the hike near the start of FWC's November and December arrival window, and 17 days before the December 1 breeding season begins at Old Marsh.

Life inside a community like Old Marsh includes small, practical details like the crane calendar. At Faxon and Stanko, we follow those details for the clients we represent. If you are thinking ahead about your home at Old Marsh, or about a move within Palm Beach Gardens, we welcome you to Request a Private Consultation.