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March 16 2024 Work Party
A copse of trees hides a stand of holly. The youngest among us recruits help, instructs on tools, leads the way. It is warm, too warm for this time of year, we peel off layers, elderberry and red flowering currant bloom weeks earlier than usual. What do the nesting birds make of the unseasonable warmth? An elder wrenches tangled holly roots from between those of a grown cottonwood, we unearth gnarled blackberry root balls nearby, pull up the carpet of ivy. An old Coke can, shards from a broken pane of glass, tennis balls shorn of fuzz. Everywhere we have touched this landscape. A silent bald eagle and a crying…
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nesting season
Our community work parties came to an abrupt pandemic pause at the end of February 2020 and did not resume until fall, so this year brings a new consideration: How to move forward with habitat restoration without disrupting nesting season? Work in our original area is slowing as we maintain what we have done, and we have just barely started on a new area overgrown with Himalayan blackberry. Birdsong–from chickadees, robins, juncos, and so many birds I have yet to learn–already fills the air, telling me I’m really too late to clear more canes, but I am desperate not to lose these coming months of work in the park. We…
