Bethpage State Park Ecology

     

 Recently, Bethpage State Park hosted Farmingdale Girl Scouts for a fun-filled nature event in our Picnic Area. This marked the second year in a row this Farmingdale Troop came for an autumn visit which lent itself to another another seasonal, colorful kind of day! To kick off our event, we started with a sensory experience in our Picnic Pollinator Garden! Pointing out all the dried out flowerheads and seedpods, they learned that the fluff part of the seed is an adaptation that helps with dispersal. Milkweed noticeably had this feature in our garden, as it is not only prevalent but protected at our park, to benefit the larva of Monarch butterflies.    This segued us into our next topic: the Monarch lifecycle and their magnificent migration to Mexico for overwintering! I was impressed to find out that the girls knew quite a bit about this species' needs and journey. It seems we have ourselves some butterfly enthusiasts (and possibly future entomologists)!  After,...