I know lots of birders have been pleased with the facilities and habitat
protections the Franklin Co Metroparks have provided in
recent years. Now the parks have new leadership, and planned focus
groups over the next week will give us a chance to speak on behalf
of the parks' birdlife.
        Two new parks will be joining a system that has distinguished itself in
providing encouragement and protection for birds and other wildlife, and
we are invited to make sure the Parks continue to provide them habitats
in the future. It seems to me that birders will
want to see that wild things--birds of course, but also insects and
frogs and toads and native plants, will reign in wild places that we can
visit, to learn and refresh our spirits. We need much more than
green expanses of moved grass and bike and running trails.
        I remember that a few years ago an acquisition of some corn fields by
the Parks at Battelle-Darby was so well dedicated to restoration of its
former state that local birders were able to add over thirty new species
to that park's checklist--most of them shore- and marsh birds that have
suffered in the last century or two. The Parks are many things to many
users, but most of all they protect natural history, and with it human
history, in ways that might otherwise be lost.
        Check out
http://www.metroparks.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Focus-group-meetings-web.pdf
   to get a schedule of opportunities to make sure wild things get their
rightful place in planning the expansion of our irreplaceable parks.
Focus groups meet next Tuesday and Wednesday, than Monday and Wednesday
of the following week.
See you there,
Bill Whan







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