Mushrooms, trees, ceramics, rocks, ice cream, saplings, birds, milkweed balls, and more all came together for one big celebration at the Norwood Park Natural History Day, Sunday October 30. Over 200 attendees learned about the trees in the Park, what kind of mushrooms grow where (and even sampled some cooked up right on site), learned about watersheds and the importance of native plants, and did some non-native invasive removal.
The day started with a bird walk lead by Pete Givan and Carolyn Peirce who spotted 21 species. At 12:30, there was food, speakers, a book exchange, and more. Hank Levine and Stephanie Riguax, from the Bethesda Historical Society talked about the history of the park and of the area. Doug Levin brought rocks and other natural object for a really fascinating look at the geology of the area.
Leanne Gelletly was there from the MD Extension Master Gardener’s Baywise Program. Ann English from the RainScapes program let people know about the Montgomery County Rebate program for residential stormwater management. John Harper, Issaiah Bednash and Annie Weissman were there from MAW to educate us on mushrooms. Vanessa Beauchamp presented on watersheds.
Adele O’Dowd, Annika Haksar and Wendy Schleicher lead groups on a tour of the trees of the park, stopping to admire the big stump near the playground. The group learned that we have more than 50 species of trees in the Park. You can take the tour on you own by visiting https://www.lfwa.org/npap-tree-tour
There was also a service element to the day. Thank you to the volunteers who helped removed non-native invasive weeds from the tree island. We are able to free about a dozen trees from bush honeysuckle and from porcelain berry vines.
thank you
Thank you to Bethesda Bagels, Breads Unlimited, Lisa Makes Pie, and Madeline Wade for providing yummy treats. To Julie Hurst for organizing the District Clay Center artists ceramic auction and to Emily Gross for the book exchange. To Erica Antonelli for the milkweed seed balls. To Lucy O’Dowd for her winning t-shirt design and to all the artists who submitted artwork to our contest. To David Kathan and Elliott Klayman for their photos. And of course, thank you to Adele O’Dowd, who had the idea for a Natural History Day, and her team of more than 25 volunteers who worked tirelessly to host the event. Thank you to our partners at Montgomery Parks for supporting our stewardship.