Celebrate the coming of spring by getting outdoors and finding some natural beauty! Not far from Olympus Boulevard is a 200-acre park featuring vast areas of natural beauty. We're talking about the Arbor Hills Nature Preserve, and it's where visitors can see the plants, animals, and ecoregions of North Central Texas.

The preserve offers both paved and natural unpaved trails, and they're popular among hikers who come to discover flowers and birds such as:

Texas Bluebonnet

The bluebonnet is the State Flower of Texas. Historian, Jack Maguire, once stated that the "bluebonnets are to Texas as what shamrocks are to Ireland." These flowers reach peak bloom in late March, and they feature blunt leaflets that are sometimes notched with sticky undersides.

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Also known as the Texas Bird of Paradise, scissor-tailed flycatchers are slender birds with stiff, deeply forked tails. They display gray feathers and blackish wings, and adults have salmon-pink flanks that are conspicuous in flight. Listen for their song that sounds like a dog playing with a squeaky toy.

Indian Blanket

Indian blankets are a major wildflower of prairies and meadows as they readily reseed. They're also known as firewheels, and display flower heads with a red center and yellow outer band. Indian blankets attract a large number of butterflies and native bees.

American Kestrel

American kestrels have rusty brown spotted feathers with a black band near the tip of their tail. They're approximately the size of a mourning dove, though they have a larger head and longer, narrower wings. American kestrels typically snatch their prey from the ground, and their call is an exciting series of klee and killy notes.

The Arbor Hills Nature Preserve is just one of the outdoor attractions near our apartments in Frisco. To call our community home, please contact us. We'd love to give you a tour where you can see all we have to offer.