Day off walk

Today was Monday but I had the day off of work. I decided to get a walk in fairly early and arrived just before 8:30am. One of the first things I noticed were the calls of Red-winged Blackbirds. It struck me that it's been a while since I've heard so many of them -and being this late in the year it seems likely that these were birds who had been further north and were just moving through the area headed back south. In one of the small sloughs on the east side, you can now walk along the water for a bit due to recent construction going on in the park. Rock has been added around some of the drainage openings which should prevent erosion and also help filter water. Here I spotted and Eastern Phoebe, recognizable by it's pattern of returning to the same branch after repeatedly flying out to catch insects. A short time later on the edge of the ball fields I could see 4 or 5 birds that I easily recognized, although don't seem to common at Palmer Lake. I recently learned that the European Starling was introduced to the US in the late 1800's by a group of Shakespeare enthusiasts who wanted to introduce all birds mentioned in his plays. All European or "Common" Starlings you see today would be descendants of 100 Starlings introduced to Central Park in New York! Read more here. Near the end of my walk I had an opportunity to see another common bird that has been elusive to my camera lens -a Dark-eyed Junco. They typically will keep moving forward as I approach, just far away enough to make them hard to photograph. It was a bit unusual to find myself right underneath this one.

There is a Season Turn, Turn, Turn

October is one of my favorite months -although you can never be quite sure what the weather will bring. Our first snow of the season can be as early as the first week in October! So far though, the month is full of sun and warmth. If it stays this way for a while it might just make up for the blasted hot summer we had. Other than a lot of busy squirrels, the first thing of interest today was this sign on the north side notifying park-goers of an archery deer hunt going on. I knew the city has organized these in the past but this was the first time I'd seen signs posted about it. It's a bit of a catch-22 for deer living in an urban area like this. Though it's probably a somewhat safe and sheltered habitat, they're unlikely to ever stray too far from it as there's just too much city streets to navigate before reaching another habitable area. With such a small and defined habitat, they're subject to intensive control when their population grows even just a bit too large. It will be interesting to see what the results are at the end of the hunt in mid December. The park doesn't really have a lot of great "fall color" trees, except for a few maples on the outlying areas surrounding the baseball fields and tennis courts. Still, it's apparent that the drastically wet summer, followed by an extremely dry Fall has had some unusual effects on the foliage. Some trees that were beautifully red this time last year have already dropped their leaves, while other trees haven't even started to turn yet. Amazingly you can find extreme variation on the same tree or plant like the one pictured here -which I think is a grapevine. With all the warm sun on the trail this time of year you have to watch your step just like you do in the Spring time. Only now it's not snails but grasshoppers that pepper the pavement in hopes of soaking up some warmth. These particular ones can get pretty big. This was my 3rd or 4th attempt at a photo -as they can move just a bit faster than a snail!

One More In September

After a successful day of cleaning up the park, I was eager for another visit this weekend. I did a quick check on the collected trash bags and thankfully nobody had messed with them overnight. Like yesterday the evening temps were only in the 30's but by noon time it was warming up into the 60's or higher. I don't know how certain things survive such cold evening temps and then seem to wake up and be as active as any mid-summer day. Blue Jays have been extremely active this month it seems like there's more around than last year. By the time I got to the bridge on the north side, I'd seen Painted Turtles, a Great Blue Heron, Dragonflies, a female Red-breasted Grosbeak and an unlikely Brown Thrasher. It was such a nice sunny day that I decided to walk along the creek starting from the bridge. I found a nice log to just sit and watch the creek, hoping to see some Wood Ducks or something. I was a ways from the water but I could see large Carp and an occasional Turtle float by. A short time later I saw this Green Heron and realized how few of them I'd seen at the park this year. At the rate I've been seeing them, this could be the last one I see for a while. The last thing I stopped to take a photo of today was actually the sky. It was like a post card with perfectly placed billowy white clouds against a rich blue sky. I thought about how many more days like this we might have this season and to really appreciate them.

Friends of Palmer Lake Park - Fall Cleanup

This Saturday I saw the realization of what had previously been just a daydream of mine -an actual organized park clean-up day! Though I'd been tossing the idea around in my head for quite some time, I credit a couple of other park-goers for giving me the motivation to finally act on the idea and see it through. So by just a few conversations, emails and by word-of-mouth, a small group of citizens came together on Saturday morning to help clean up Palmer Lake Park! We started bright and early at 8:00am -with the temperature only around 35 degrees and thus a few winter hats coming out of storage early. Prior to the clean up day, I'd contacted the City of Brooklyn Center, simply just to inquire about picking up the collected trash afterward. Not only did I learn they were more than happy to do so, but they would also even loan us garbage-grabbers, as well as supply bags, gloves and vests if needed. The people with the City were all around great to deal with; extremely helpful and informative, making our goal that much easier to accomplish. I checked out a total of ten garbage grabbers which ended up to be just about right -as my own personal grabber completely broke apart only 1/4th of the way around! As I hiked back to our starting point to switch out my grabber, I ran into another member of our group who was focusing on a particularly problematic area of the park, the south western corner. I was so happy to see this amount of effort and care taking place. Others in our group continued around the entire perimeter of the park all the way back to the south side parking lot. Upon returning and meeting up with the rest of the group here is when it really hit me just how big of an impact our small group had made on the park. Accounting for a few bags that were left in receptacles on the opposite side of the park, I counted a total of 14 bags full of trash that were collected in just 4 hours! In my opinion this was a huge success -especially given that it was really a "first attempt." I can't thank enough the people who volunteered their time this Saturday morning. Our collective efforts have helped beautify and preserve a much under-appreciated natural area. Spread the word -there will be more cleaning efforts to come!!!