On Sunday, December 19th I joined Urban Ranger Marissa Miller and about 20 other hearty souls for a frigid walk around Willow Lake Preserve in Flushing Meadow Park.
The Parks Dept is in the process of removing invasive species of plants, including phragmites, mugwort and others. They plan to plants over 13,000 natives trees and plants as part of the NYC Million Trees initiative at this site.
Even with the sub freezing temperatures we were able to see a varied assortment of wildlife including 100s+ Canada geese, 8 Great Blue Herons, a Downy woodpecker, numerous species of ducks (Mallard, Black Ducks, Hooded Merganser, Buffleheads) and the highlight of the morning walk was a low flyover by a Red-tailed Hawk.
I also observed large amount of scat, possibly from a Red Fox. It looked identical to the following photo(see below) I located online when I returned home.
Photo credit: http://www.wildlifeonline.me.uk/red_fox.html
I would like to thank Queens Civic Congress President, Pat Dolan for extending me an invitation to this well worthwhile walk, despite the cold it was both informative and exhilarating.
