This is the place to go if you are a fan of photography and/or bird watching. Bring a good zoom lens or pair of binoculars and enjoy the two-story indoor bird watching room! There's also a short trail to walk around and see wildlife, with plenty of space to sit and relax and enjoy the views. Very easy to get to, easy to park, highly recommended if you want a relaxing day of watching nature, especially birds.

While I love the Sandhill Cranes, at this point I am more interested in other great wildlife spread over thousands of acres. The new walking / biking trail extends through the woods east of the visitor center before joining the road to Densmore slough. On a 2 hour walk a week ago, I saw over 15 different birds (including some more unusual like Brown Creeper and Yellow-breasted Sapsucker) walking the trail after a brief visit to the Cranes near the visitor center. I like the new blind but wish some provision could also be made for a blind on the observation tower end. The Whooping Cranes, when present, seem to favor that side. The glass front of the tower badly distorts pictures from the tower. I highly recommend the new trail for a chance to spot birds, squirrels, deer and racoons! The ranger staff are very friendly, knowledgeable and helpful, especially for new visitors. Once the new visitor center renovatioon and education pavalion are completed in a few months, this will be a real jewel!

I go there often to see the migratory birds such as cranes and white pelicans. I do wish they had more hiking trails, but there are more than there used to be. We kayak there also and there are alligators. It’s a beautiful refuge.

We caught the height of Sandhill cranes visiting there for the winter or stopping through. The new trails and viewing spots are great. Thanks

Arrowhead Landing is absolutely gorgeous. There are so many spots to fish from, away from the road and not many people. It’s quiet and we saw ppl riding there bikes along the path as well. Great location for kayaking

Lotsa trash so we try to bring a garbage bag and gloves to clean up everytime we fish! Forgot last time and it was really bad! But the fishing is good and the peacefulness is priceless! Just keep an eye out for the gators and you'll be golden!

It's was kinda crowded but there are some amazing sites to see

Quite and beautiful my favorite place to hunt. It is also my favorite place to fish. Also a shout-out to the game wardens for doing their job and being very polite and courteous. The rangers for Wheeler wild life management area need to do some clean up and catch the people who are trashing some of the areas.

We came to the visitors center because we saw on their Facebook page that the cranes had begun to return to the refuge for the winter. We did see cranes, but we were told that we were a little early for the big flocks of cranes. We enjoyed the experience, anyway, and plan to come back for the festival in January.

Usually 2 star reviews are meant to be negative but this is not necessarily true with this review. Don't bother to show up here unless it's December or January. As I'm writing this there are a few cranes here. The last few weeks they don't unlock the photo blind nor the viewing room. And the gates are shut on the weekend until the crane season kicks in otherwise this place is barren and just full of traffic on top of traffic in Decatur 10 months out of the year. But if your on the east coast you don't have much choice in the matter. Photographing here in December and January is phenomenal. But this wildlife refuge isnt like most. It's tiny and not much to see and you can hike a little with your camera but not much.