My migration walks in the park are beginning to wind down, but not for the
reason I expected. "White Oaks Park," as reference in my posts consists of
White Oaks Park (about 10 acres), a Fairfax County park, and the Little
Hunting Creek Club (about 10 acres), a private swim and tennis club bordering
White Oaks, containing much good habitat. (On the other side of the Club is
Bucknell Elementary School, with another 10 or so acres of mostly lawns and
parking lots.)
Over the last 48 hours, a security fence has been installed around the
perimeter of the Club. It is about 80 percent complete, and will presumably
be finished today, so this morning will be the last morning of my traditional
walks. In addition to cutting off access from much of the habitat, the fence
also cuts off the linkages between the trails within White Oaks Park proper,
so that it is now impossible to do a loop along the perimeter of White Oaks.
Over the years, I have had woodcock, solitary sandpiper, wood ducks, all of
the thrushes (except Bicknell's), blue grosbeak, Baltimore orioles, Wilson's,
Canada, Tennessee, Chestnut-sided, and Kentucky warblers, flyover raptors,
terns, and waterbirds, and breeding bluebirds and barred owls on the Club
property.
Not only will this greatly disrupt my morning walks, but it also reduces the
value of the data that I have been collecting on morning walks for 5 years,
which didn't distinguish between the two properties, so I now will have an
apples and oranges problem comparing past data to any I may collect in the
future. In addition to being heartbroken for purely personal reasons, this
fence is something of a tragedy for the local community. Many dogwalkers and
joggers used the same trails I did for birding. Perhaps more importantly,
the link between two public spaces, White Oaks Park and Bucknell ES has been
severed. Some children used these paths to access the the school or its
facilities. My four-year-old daughter and I would walk through the park and
club to get to the school playground. Now we will have to walk four times as
far along busy streets to get there.
I'm sure that the Club had what it perceived as good reasons to put up the
fence -- after all, they must have spent tens of thousands of dollars
building it. Maybe they had concerns about vandalism (although all of the
facilities except the parking lot were already fenced off with an internal
fence), or about legal liability about some "trespasser" getting hurt. But
to me it is just another sign of the fortress mentality that is eroding our
sense of community in this country.
Like the dove, the warbler, and the cloak, I am in mourning.
Ben Jesup
Alexandria
P.S. Migration is winding down in the traditional sense, too. Only two
passage migrants this morning -- 1 blackpoll and 1 northern H20thrush. No
thrushes or vireos.
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