State guide

Alabama Nature Guide

Alabama is one of the most biologically rich states in the country, stretching from the sandstone canyons and waterfalls of the Cumberland Plateau in the north to the white-sand barrier beaches of the Gulf Coast. Between them lie the Mobile-Tensaw Delta — one of the most biodiverse river deltas in North America — the Black Belt prairies, and the longleaf-pine and wiregrass country of the southern Coastal Plain. That range packs in great wildlife spectacles: wintering Sandhill Cranes (and a few Whooping Cranes) at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, the legendary spring trans-Gulf migrant fallouts on Dauphin Island, Red-cockaded Woodpeckers in the longleaf, and Brown Pelicans patrolling the coast. From USDA zone 7a on the plateau to 9a on the warm coast, Alabama's seasons run from temperate uplands to humid subtropical lowlands.