Bethpage State Park Ecology

Eastern bluebird during nesting season (2017) on the Black Course As an enormous green space in the heart of Long Island (1,477 acres to be exact), Bethpage State Park is always looking for ways to help protect local wildlife and utilize our grounds for citizen science research. If an environmental organization has a simple program in place that matches these efforts, well you can count us in! This month we participated in Audubon's Climate Watch, an example of just that kind of program. This biannual birding opportunity calls on North American volunteers to go outside and look for target species that scientists predict will most likely be effected by climate change within this decade. The species of interest this year are bluebirds and nuthatches. The intended goal of Climate Watch is to collect data on where these birds are now, so scientists can stay alert of their range changes and create timely protection plans for the future. (Reference from Audubon's Climate