FreeLists / bristol-birds / [Bristol-Birds] Visiting Steele Creek Park Wetlands

["Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Steele Creek Park --  An urban wilderness beyond compare.



Where else can one walk five minutes to a valuable and sensitive municipal park 
wetlands, nestled among more than 2,000 acres of forest ?  

     A wetlands for birds, a place for all birders. A productive ecosystem 
providing vanishing habitat for aquatic creatures and plants struggling to 
survive.
To paraphrase a song: "no other place on earth will do" than the aquatic 
environment which supports waterbirds, amphibians, reptiles and a host of 
plants including rushes, duckweed, arrowheads, cattails and sweetflags.

The staff at Steele Creek Park Nature Center in Bristol Tennessee produced this 
jewel among urban sprawl.  

Armed with massive mitigation money from Bristol Motor Speedway and help from 
students of Tennessee High School and Virginia Intermont College, the city and 
the nature center staff followed the professional help of a consulting firm to 
build a wetlands for wildlife and park visitors of all ages. 

As dark falls across the city, Black-crowned Night-Herons, Yellow-crowned 
Night-Herons and Great Blue Herons come quietly to feed. At dawn Green Herons 
join the Great Blue, stalking the shore to capture tadpoles, aquatic larvae and 
other small creatures. Mallards are there by day.  Canada Geese stand quietly 
in the shallows.

White-tailed Deer drink at the water's edge.  Meadow Voles, Short-tailed Shrew, 
Muskrat, Raccoon and Opossum are known at the wetlands.

Among the breeders are Wood Frog, Spring Peeper, Upland Chorus Frog, Pickerel 
Frog, Bull Frog, Gray Treefrog, American Toad, Spotted Salamander, Musk Turtle 
and Snapping Turtle.  At nearly all season you can hear one or more -- even at 
high noon.  The calls are nearly deafening during the breeding season.  Now you 
can stand quietly on the overlook platform, above the water, to listen and 
watch for good birds and frogs.

The walk to the wetlands is less than 250 yards from the Rooster Front Park 
east access to Steele Creek Park.  Heading out the Lake Ridge Trail ahead, 
beyond the directions sign, you will enjoy a beautiful stroll beneath the giant 
sycamore trees with Steele Creek flowing past you along your trail to the left. 
 Just as the trail turns uphill to the right (away from the steam), an 
undeveloped path leads through the riparian flood plain straight ahead.  An 
easy walk out brings you upon the wetlands at water level where the photo above 
was taken.  Those who want the upper view can simply follow the main trail over 
the Cattle Creek footbridge and the wetlands overlook is in sight before you 
get off the bridge.

For more than 30 years, the Steele Creek Park nature emphasis has been total 
inventory of the park, research and resources.  Naturalist have crawled ridges 
in the snow and waded frozen streams to trap mammals, surveyed plant 
communities and flora study plots, describe the ecology of forest types, 
protected cave species, buillt management concepts for threatened park species, 
studied owl populations, captured and study seldom-seen and little- known 
turtle inhabitants and carried out limnological studies in the park's 50-acre 
lake.  

Along the way there have been comprehensive aquatic faunal surveys of the 
park's main streams and reintroduction of native species.  A winter study 
comparing the waterfowl populations of the lake with other small lakes in the 
region,  won first place at the Virginia Society of Ornithology paper session 
at Mountain Lake.  The paper was selected over graduate students from Virginia 
Tech, Longwood College, William & Mary and presentations from staff members of 
the U.S. National Museum, Virginia Chapter of the Wildlife Society and Virginia 
Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

Students from colleges and universities research there now and have for 
decades.  Graduate work spans ferns (ETSU-1972) and a rare dace (ETSU-2001).  
Bird lists and inventories date back almost half a century.  The Steele Creek 
Park Nature Center, friends group and volunteers have been honored for more 
than a decade with awards from the Tennessee Recreation and Parks Association.  
The park has won federal and state natural resources recognition.

The park is supported by a strong and dedicated friends group.  
Friends of Steele Creek Nature Center and Park is a private, non-profit 
organization whose purpose is to "aid the Steele Creek Park Nature Center in 
reaching its defined mission of being a conservation center within the 
community of Bristol where land and people can be united for scientific, 
cultural, recreational and educational pursuits." 

The Friends raise thousands and thousands of dollars every year to fund student 
research, build needed facilities, conduct Wildlife Weekend and bring 
corporate, governmental and educational opportunity and resources beyond 
compare.  Wildlife Weekend at the park is very special.  

The Bristol Bird Club has long had a region-class partnership with the Nature 
Center -- funding projects and providing leadership and talent for park 
activities.   

The Junior Naturalist Program has produced top young leadership and outstanding 
naturalists.  In years past the volunteers and park staff have become 
professionals in wildlife management, natural resource agencies and leading 
academic faculty at major universities.  The alumni from the youth program is 
impressive.  The park's first naturalist is on the faculty at the University of 
Kentucky and has built research stations in Asia.  At least four former 
naturalists from the payroll have completed or are near completion of 
doctorates.  Among them is the prominent director of the School of Natural 
Resources at The Ohio State University.

The natural history and park resources program, supported by funding and 
dedication from the Bristol Tennessee City Council and government, operates 
from an excellent blue print.  The first was a major 1992 "Steele Creek Nature 
Center Development Plan" and a council-appointed 1997 "Steele Creek Park Nature 
Center -- A Vision for the Future" committee.  Several former and present 
Bristol Bird Club members both participated in the design and chaired  the 
projects as well as served on the committee.

The park is open from 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.  For details, call the Nature Center 
at (423) 989-5616.  Stop in to see the public displays and get a detailed 
four-color map of the park which can be carried afield.  The Nature Center 
usually opens around 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the summer and opens at 1 p.m. on 
Sunday.
Don't keep the secret. Explore your urban wildness beyond the parking lots .....

Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN