Warnimont Park gun club update: public hearing today!

Should the Cudahy skeet-shooters remain in Warnimont Park? Should they be allowed to destroy one of the best sites for birding in Milwaukee County?

Speak up at a public hearing Wed. June 3, 2015, at Cudahy Family Library.

The Cudahy Sportsmen’s Club, a skeet-shooting club, have met in Warnimont Park on Lake Michigan for many years, but neighbors increasingly object to the shooting noise and the debris left in the lark and in the lake. The club is requesting a new location in the park, but opponents say the new site is too close to private houses and a hospital. The Audubon Society has voiced strong opposition because of the sensitive ecology of the proposed new site.

Read much more (and see more photos) in my earlier column in Milwaukee Magazine.

        WHAT: Public hearing to discuss whether Cudahy Sportsmen’s Club may remain in Warnimont Park
        WHEN: Wednesday, June 3, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Public comments will begin at 7:15
        WHERE: Cudahy Family Library, 3500 Library Drive, Cudahy

DIRECTIONS: Take East Layton Avenue to Sweet Applewood Lane. Turn south on Sweet Applewood. Turn east on Barnard Drive and cross RR tracks. The green library building on Library Drive will be visible on your right. Park on Barnard Drive or behind library. (Directions allow for construction in area.)

A spring morning at the Urban Ecology Center

Randy Powers is the proprietor of Prairie Future Seed Company, which specializes in the propagation, proliferation, and care for native species. Saturday morning he was out in front of the Urban Ecology Center selling flowers.

Potted Queen of the Prairie seedlings

Jeff Veglahn, the Urban Ecology Center's Land Steward, helps out with the sale.

Wild Iris

A group of girls representing three scout troops from Whitefish Bay and Mukwonago went on a birding expedition along the Menomonee River, led by UEC staff.

Observation Deck

Pausing on the eroded riverbank to view a family of Canada geese swimming to the opposite shore.

Adaptable species, the Canada goose.

View from the Hank Aaron State Trail

Oaks are late bloomers. Sandbar willows form a bright green backdrop for this oak, yet to bud out. If you turn 180 degrees from this point overlooking the river and look across Canal Street you see this:

Life in the urban wilderness.

This post is one in a series that relates to my Menomonee Valley Artist in Residency. For more information about the residency and links to previous posts and photographs, go to MV AiR.