Bethpage State Park Ecology

This weekend girl scouts and parents gathered at Bethpage State Park's Carlyle on the Green, eager to watch a raptor show put on by Volunteers for Wildlife.  Volunteers for Wildlife is a local organization dedicated to rehabilitating Long Island's fauna and teaching the public about these efforts. Leading the show, was part-time volunteer, educator and Bethpage State Park employee Jim Jones. Jim personally monitors the red-tailed hawks and great horned owl nests we have here at our park. With his wealth of knowledge and experience we could not think of a better person to educate the scouts on local birds of prey!  While in the past many of these girls attended our other eco-educational programs, this was their first time viewing a live bird show and learning about apex predators. This made it a highly anticipated and important event for all those in attendance. With that being said, we are very proud to thank John Sieb of All Pro Horticulture, for graciously spon

   This week in the pollinator garden behind our maintenance shop, park staff gathered in awe to find dozens of native butterfly species not only present simultaneously but feeding voraciously! Many remarked that it was like being spectators at Bethpage State Park's very own "Butterfly Zone". These high numbers seen so late in the season may have to do with the extremely warm weather we've been experiencing on Long Island well into October; during midday, on both Friday October 6 and Monday October 9, temperatures reached 80 ° F. In the past, temperatures were cooler and many of the butterflies seen this week would have been well on their path of migration to warmer habitats down south.          Nevertheless, butterflies of all different shapes and colors were swarming around many of the flowers and shrubs still in bloom near #13 green on the Black Course. One type of flower in particular, the Lantanas, was the champion of all host plant for the polli

      Our National Honey Bee Day Celebration!                Honey bee feeding on Blazing Star ( Liatris spicata ). This month, our park hosted a National Honey Bee Day event, sponsored by Bayer BeeCare, who graciously awarded our park a grant to expand our picnic pollinator garden this year. With their cooperation and The Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA), we were able to put together a fun-filled day of fantastic activities and environmental learning. At the event, pollinator-friendly flowers (specifically varieties that bloom later in the season) were added to the existing garden by those in attendance. Amongst the planters was the Girl Scout Brownie Troop #3410; they actually planted sections in the garden earlier this spring but enthusiastically, came back for more on National Honey Bee Day! Giveaways included fuzzy toy bees, pollinator coloring pages, tools to identify pollinator host plants, even honey treats. Our on-site beekeepers Moira Alexan

         Every year, when the flowers begin to bloom, Bethpage State Park becomes a stomping grounds for monarch butterflies. This is a likely result of our park containing acres of natural habitat, which provide both oviposition sites and nutritional resources for the butterflies before their long migration to overwintering locations in Mexico.   With that in mind, this year we decided to participate in Monarch Joint Venture's Monarch Monitoring Blitz. This was a week long event, from July 29th-August 5th, where locations in Canada, U.S and Mexico made a collective effort to observe and note monarch activity. The only requirement to participate in this event was that the location being monitored had to have growing milkweed. Milkweed is a native plant that provides adult monarchs with nectar and monarch caterpillars with the only food source to complete its life cycle. Given that Bethpage State Park has multiple milkweed varieties growing in large stands all throughou

This means a full week dedicated to celebrating these beautiful and diverse organisms, which like butterflies, are pollinators! One easy way to get involved this year is to spend some time in your local park or backyard, search for different moth species, and upload your sightings to  Butterflies and Moths of North America . This website is incredibly easy to use after you make an account. All you have to do is enter the date, time, location of your moth sighting, along with a photo and the name of the species you think you may have found. Soon after you make your submission, a coordinator will verify your post and enter it into the site's database and gallery. Just like that, you can officially become a citizen scientist! This means that you will have participated in the collective effort to provide biologists and nature enthusiasts nationwide, with data they can use to answer critical science questions regarding pollinators and their populations. Submitting data is how

Did you know a QR code is a quick and easy way to make important information accessible to those that own a smart phone? Instead of printing up brochures (only to find out that our park might be littered with them), visitors can now enjoy this NEW eco-friendly option for learning instead; all you have to do is look for this sign in our Picnic Area Pollinator Garden, take out your phone, and simply scan! **In the event that you might not be able to check out the garden/scan the sign in-person, you can scan the QR code, right now, from the photo above - Give it a try!**  A  current visitor who is all ears about pollinators!  Upon scanning, a URL will direct visitors to  an ecology blog post where they will be able to read about why this habitat was built and  view photos of bee, butterfly and flowers present in the garden. To conclude, we strongly urge everyone in the picnic area to get the most out of this aesthetic habitat by also acknowledging it as a tool for

While the #5 Pond on the Green Course might not be the most ideal location to hit your ball, it happens to be the perfect site for birds to play! This is no surprise, as this pond is home to a variety of prey for birds; this includes the azure damselfly and the blue dasher dragonfly, both insects that utilize the surface of the  water and aquatic plants (such as water lilies) to oviposit, or lay their eggs. Yesterday, while scouting the pond for native milkweed and other pollinator friendly plants, I was delighted to not only hear but see this beautiful cedar waxwing pair in the pond-side vegetation. In the picture below, you can see that the waxwings were utilizing tall, Joe Pye Weed as a perch, just before they flew off in pursuit of some unlucky insects.  Viewing this feat is particularly fascinating, especially since cedar waxwings are better known for being voracious berry eaters! All throughout the year, these passerines can be seen feeding on just about

Monarch Joint Venture, an organization committed to protecting monarch butterflies and their migration in the North American region, has chosen Bethpage State Park's Picnic Area Pollinator Garden as this week's featured garden on their Twitter and Facebook page !  data-lang="en"> Happy #Monarch Habitat #SuccessStorySunday ! Old Bethpage State Park NY created habitat and involved the community! https://t.co/zzCe1fqiVQ pic.twitter.com/i1QVszBwdk — MonarchJointVenture (@MonarchsJV) July 9, 2017 This is a great outlet for Bethpage State Park to educate others outside our local community about why this garden was created, how it was built and most importantly, the resources it provides for monarch butterflies to complete their migration and life cycle!  TO READ MORE ABOUT THE SUCCESS OF OUR POLLINATOR GARDEN ON MONARCH JOINT VENTURE'S WEBSITE CLICK HERE

Monarch butterfly and honey bee enjoying blooming, native plants in our picnic area pollinator garden.             Did you know that this year, June 19-25 th is National Pollinator Week?   In fact, the U.S Department of Agriculture has announced this weeklong event every year since 2007 to promote greater protection for pollinators and build awareness for the ecosystem services they provide. The true definition of a pollinator is any organism who visits the same flower species, transferring pollen as they feed and assisting plant fertilization as a result. These animals include insects (such as bees, butterflies, moths, beetles etc.), birds and bats. The assistance that these species provide not only ensures the next generation of plants for parks and backyard gardens… the overall pollination process creates a healthy habitat for wildlife, clean air for us to breathe and crops to eat. However, in recent years, the number of pollinators and the plants they rely on have declined dr