Hiking Havenwoods with Brew City Safari

Havenwoods, despite its designation as a State Forest, is largely prairie. On Saturday, when I joined up with Brew City Safari for the second week in a row, the sky was gloomy and the prairie mostly dull shades of umber. But the temperature was perfect and we had a lovely walk. I took a few photos, as is my habit, and even managed to find a few spots of color here and there.

At about our halfway point we came to a boardwalk that led us out over a wetland and pond.

There we were joined by Beth, one of the State Forest rangers. She had caught a number of small creatures, such as damselfly larvae.

They were placed into lab magnifiers so that we could observe their forms and movements.

The youngest member of our party grabbed one of the nets and promptly caught a healthy-sized tadpole, held here by Beth.

I also learned from Beth that this is called "panic grass" because of the way the stems diverge, kind of like a grassy fireworks display.

There are actually a few woodland areas in the state forest.

Brew City Safari has yet another hike scheduled for October 22 and then one in November. For more information go to their website.

China Lights a huge crowd pleaser at Boerner Botanical Gardens

I went to see China Lights last night and on a Tuesday there was a long line of cars creeping through Whitnall Park towards Boerner Botanical Gardens. After finally parking, the ticket lines were also long. (Buy your tickets in advance, online!) The show, billed as a "lantern festival," opened Oct. 1. I can only imagine what the weekend was like. The only time I've ever seen so many people at a Milwaukee County Park has been at O'Donnell for fireworks displays. China lights has a similar sense of spectacle.

The show is definitely a crowd pleaser and family-friendly. I wasn't all that interested in the animals and cartoon characters myself, but the multitudes of children who were there--including my granddaughter--definitely were.

The highlight for me was the woodland boardwalk with the overhead lanterns (above and below).

Here are a few more images I managed to catch in the dark.

According to John Dargle, Milwaukee County Parks Director, this is normally the slowest time of the garden season at Boerner Gardens. "With China Lights we now expect it to be the busiest season," he said. There have been an estimated 20,000 visitors to date, with two more weeks to go!

China Lights was organized by The Park People and proceeds will benefit them as well as Boerner Botanical Gardens.

For more information go to the article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel or to the China Lights website (where you can buy your tickets, good through Oct. 31.)

Riverkeeper leads Brew City Safari tour of Milwaukee River Greenway

The sun shone brightly on Saturday afternoon as I joined a throng gathering at Caesar's Pool Park for a hike on the Milwaukee River. Sponsored by Brew City Safari, the tour was led by guest guide, Cheryl Nenn, Milwaukee's Riverkeeper. I played leap-frog with the group to the halfway point at the Locust Street bridge. At that point I lost the group due to my penchant for wandering off to shoot photos. But I forged on. It was a perfect day for a hike in one of my favorite places. Here's my photo essay:

Riverkeeper Nenn leads group across the river at Caesar's Pool, site of the former North Avenue dam.

Seedling in protective tube planted by River Revitalization Foundation volunteers to restore native species along the West Bank Trail.

We saw several spots where bank stabilization work was underway to mitigate damage done by a storm in 2010.

The group circled the "graffiti wall" that adorns the ruins of a former bathing resort, when this part of the Milwaukee River Greenway was a lake impounded by the North Avenue dam.

This mattress, embedded in the tall riparian grasses, is evidence that people other than graffiti taggers frequent the spot.

On the east side of the river I enter the Rotary Arboretum and Riverside Park.

A series of cairn-like sculptures by Nic Thompkins now graces the park.

Planting native vegetation is also being done along the East Bank Trail. Here it is organized by the Urban Ecology Center, which is located in Riverside Park.

Evidence of beavers -- well, at least one beaver anyway!

One of a series of murals on the piers of the North Avenue Bridge.

And back again to Caesar's Pool Park. The next Brew City Safari hike is this coming Saturday, Oct. 15 at Havenwoods State Park. Check it out on their website.

Monarchs return in force to the Monarch Trail

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I stand chest deep in flaming goldenrod and brilliant white boneset—riveted by the sight of a dozen or so monarch butterflies on a single clump of boneset. When a breeze tosses the flowers the butterflies all rise, swirl around my head. But even more marvelous, as the breeze plays over the field of wildflowers, dozens—maybe hundreds—more monarchs suddenly appear, dipping, twirling and swerving all about.

Then, just beyond this amazing and beautiful dance of delicate wildlife, a stream of rush hour traffic rumbles down Swan Boulevard.

I continue my walk along the Monarch Trail, which circles around the recently completed Echelon Apartment complex at the north end of Innovation Park on the Milwaukee County Grounds in Wauwatosa. On the west side the trail runs along the top of a long, narrow berm crowned by dying poplars. Here, next to Interstate 41, the growl of traffic is incessant. But butterflies all over the hillside are oblivious to that.

It is monarch migration season. These fluttering, fragile and remarkably resilient insects are pausing here on their incredible journey from summer habitats in Canada to their winter retreat on a mountain in central Mexico. The Monarch Trail and a friends group to maintain it were established in 2005 when it was feared that construction of Innovation Park might destroy the rare and sensitive monarch roosting sites.

That fear appeared to be justified. As expected, construction during the past several years created enough disturbance that the numbers of monarchs stopping here during the annual migration dropped precipitously. Despite this, the trail was diligently maintained and the disturbed habitat reseeded with hundreds of native, wildlife-friendly plants. The biggest concern remained: Would the dislodged monarchs ever return?

Seeing the numbers rebound is what makes this year’s migration so exciting!

The migration occurs over several days and is not completely predictable. I missed a big night on Thursday. Barb, the director of the Friends, counted around 400 roosting that day alone. While not quite as many as were seen prior to 2005, when as many as a thousand could be counted on a single night on a single sycamore, she says there haven’t been this many since 2010. The full moon rising as they settled in for the night was a bonus.

I canceled my Friday evening plans so as not to miss them all. I delight in watching them forage on the flowers and fly about, frustrated only by the impossibility of conveying the magic of it all in a single still photo. (I did try to capture a sense of what I was seeing in a short video, which you can see on YouTube.)

The “urban wilderness” to which I so frequently refer has always been a metaphor. In my urban explorations am drawn most often to places where the urban is at least somewhat backgrounded by nature, where my imagination can restore the sense of a wilderness if not the substance. It is a worthwhile endeavor, I think, to love nature in this way, in a city. But here on the Monarch Trail a stark truth is revealed. Wildlife doesn’t need to imagine a wilderness. It just needs the right conditions on the ground.

Here, sandwiched between three-story apartment blocks and a busy freeway, is nature sufficient to nourish these monarchs. Today’s enchanting dance of the butterflies was far from inevitable, though. It took substantial commitments of time and resources to save this place. Developers were convinced to sacrifice a portion of their territory, scientists engineered a restoration plan and volunteers put in thousands of hours. A few of them have come to witness the fruit of their labor.

The work remains unfinished. The habitat, revitalized as it has been, remains vulnerable. The many partners who have helped make this day possible must continue their vigilance and commitment. And, sadly, new threats continue to dog unprotected vestiges of the County Grounds that if lost will adversely affect not only the monarchs, but many other species that might find this place wild enough to flourish.

The celebrities of this story are the monarchs, of course. But this story isn’t about butterflies as much as it is about us.

In fact, whether we accept it or not, the fate of butterflies is inextricably tied to our own. It is about the kind of world we want to live in, the kind of experiences we want our children and grandchildren to have.

A few lines from a poem by Rumi comes to mind:

What will our children do in the morning
if they do not see us
fly?*

The Monarch Trail has proven that there are many people who want butterflies to be part of their world. Three weeks ago hundreds of people from all over the Milwaukee area attended an annual celebration hosted by the Friends of the Trail to mark the beginning of the migration season (see previous post.)

As dusk draws the flowers into shade, one by one the butterflies begin to gather. They flutter toward the trees and cluster together, clinging to leaves and bare branches. A small crowd of people stand below, craning their necks to watch. Now and then the butterflies startle, quivering their wings in unison, open and shut, open and shut. After a while they are still. Then they vanish in deepening darkness.

A cloudbank obscures the moonrise. But the sunset made up for it.

I return before dawn on Saturday. A few clusters of monarchs remain where I’d seen them the night before. But many already are letting go, floating away on the breeze, like autumn leaves. The moon is still full. As I watch it set beyond the trees I breathe an inaudible bon voyage to the monarchs setting off for Mexico.

*To read the entire poem by Rumi, which is lovely, click here.

To see more photos of the County Grounds go to my Flickr album.

Help keep Milwaukee’s outstanding park system intact!

Ravine Bridge, Lake Park

Parks make cities livable. Great parks are a vital part of great cities. These statements have a long history of support and are rarely disputed. I would say “never disputed” except that there is an attempt afoot right here in Milwaukee to diminish the quality of our exceptional park system. It is being perpetrated by the county administration, the very agency that we depend upon for sustaining that system. 

In August the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a story about a survey that was mailed to “4,000 randomly selected households requesting information on participation in recreational programs and use of facilities, as well as opinions on possibly closing parks….” [emphasis added.]

Below is a list of public hearings as well as contact information so that you can provide input to the county on this vital issue.

The survey itself and the perceived need for it by the county administration raise too many questions for me to cover adequately in a brief blog post. Gerry Broderick, retired chair of the Milwaukee County Board’s Parks, Energy and Environment Committee and current board member of Preserve Our Parks, has written a thorough analysis of the survey and the threat it poses. He also offers alternatives that would make the process more transparent and democratic.

Here are excerpts:

“Our enviable parks system is in grave danger of being dismantled by Milwaukee County’s administration. A seven-page survey mailed to 4,000 randomly selected households proposes actions to “reduce the size of the Milwaukee County park system to match current available funding.” It asks which parts of the well-crafted parks network could be abandoned…

“Those proposed extreme tactics were tucked amid benign questions about parks usage. I believe this survey pits park users against each other and is based on flawed premises and misrepresentations…
“With no prior discourse about specific funding methods, respondents are asked to “vote” for how to fund the parks, whether through parking meters in lakefront parks, a wheel tax, higher user fees, more partnerships with businesses and sponsors, or a sales tax. The latter was approved through a referendum in 2008 but never enacted by the state Legislature. That section’s sketchy introduction includes inaccurate and misleading statements about deferred maintenance and the county’s budgetary restrictions…

“I believe this survey is an effort to gather data to justify privatization, sale and abandonment of our public parks and facilities. Milwaukee County’s parks belong to all of us, and citizens should rightfully demand an inclusive public conversation about their future. Parks are not “businesses” and must not be cavalierly spun off or sold like divisions of a corporation. Parks all have a purpose — the greater good — regardless of how much revenue they generate.”

Followers of Urban Wilderness already know that I agree with Broderick wholeheartedly. I submit that we must change the conversation. We shouldn’t be talking about park closures and reducing expenditures on the park system. Instead we should be exploring ways to restore sustainable funding sources, revitalize the system and even expanding it.

Here is how you can help.

First, a series of public workshops are being offered starting tomorrow at locations around the county:

Sept. 13, Kosciuszko Park Community Center, 2201 S. 7th St.

Sept. 14, Lake Park Marcia Coles Community Room, 3133 E. Newberry Blvd. (lower level)

Sept. 15, Wilson Park Pavilion, 1601 W. Howard Ave.

Sept. 20, Brown Deer Park Golf Clubhouse, 7625 N. Range Line Road

Sept. 21, Gordon Park Pavilion, 2828 N. Humboldt Blvd.

Sept. 22, Dineen Park Pavilion, 6601 W. Vienna St.

Sept. 27, Sheridan Park Pavilion, 4800 S. Lake Drive

Oct. 4, McCarty Park Pavilion, 2567 S. 79 St.

Oct. 5, Center Street Park Community Room, 6420 W. Clarke St.  

All workshops begin at 6:30 p.m. with a presentation, followed by interactive workshops from 7-8 p.m. For more information, click here.

Second, contact the Parks Department directly:

• email: Contact Parks with Purpose
• call: (414) 257-PARK (7275)
• write: Parks with Purpose–Milwaukee County Parks, 9480 Watertown Plan Road, Wauwatosa, WI 53226

Third, contact your Milwaukee County Supervisor. To find out who your supervisor is and for contact info click here.

If you wish to peruse the survey itself, click here. (Note: it is not available for the general public to fill out.)

I don’t believe that any of our iconic parks, such as Lake (pictured at the top) or Greenfield (above), are in danger of being lost—although there was a serious attempt just last year to sell off O’Donnell Park recently, so who knows?! My worry is about some of the less-well-known natural areas, such as the Root River Parkway in Franklin.

The Oak Leaf Trail runs through parts of the Root River Parkway (above), but large areas are both completely undeveloped and essentially inaccessible to the majority of the public that is unlikely to bushwhack their way into it like I do (below).

To see many more photos of our glorious park system go to my Flickr album.

Full disclosure: I am a board member of Preserve Our Parks.