Bethpage State Park Ecology

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 acknowl...

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...

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