Bird-lovers flocked together on Saturday, May 15, 2021, after a long hiatus due to the Covid pandemic, here at Oak Hills Park's woodland trail. Regional bird guide Chris Bosak led us on an enchanting morning during spring migration.
Because of popular demand, we added a second Bird Watching Trail Walk so that we could accommodate and welcome approx. 40 guests to experience the quiet and beauty of nature. We spotted a number of migrating birds, although they tended to be a bit elusive in the canopy. We did hear many of their bird songs and calls.
On behalf of the Oak HIlls Park Nature Advisory Committee, we gave Chris Bosak a thank-you gift of a beautiful birdhouse which detaches from a display with fairy garden.
Enjoy Chris' blog postwith details from Saturday's Bird Watching Trail Walk! Visit Oak Hills Park's Nature Center often--it is a hidden gem for our community's enjoyment of nature and a 13-acre preserve for the health of our wildlife and environment. Help support our work!
We welcome our guest blogger and photographer, Casey McKenna
I found myself in the back of the REI store on Connecticut Avenue, during the Winter of 2018, sitting in a circle with a small group of fellow outdoor lovers. Our topic of choice that day was snowshoeing. As we fumbled with rubber straps and metal tubes, we decided collectively that we couldn’t wait to try those bad boys out in the snowy white stuff. That weekend, the fun fluff never came, so I decided to clean out my car, which had gained a penchant for morning croissant crumbs, during my commutes to Stamford. As I reached between the center console I found an old guide for a trail cleanup day, which I’d attended in June, either the year prior or even the year before that. It listed nearby trails and I flipped to a page that reminded me that there was a nice little trail right behind the Oak Hills Park golf course, just a 30-minute walk from where I live on North Taylor Avenue. Being an unusually mild day, I decided to put my feet to pavement and enjoy the sunshine, while trying not to enjoy it too much because, well, this weather is of course a result of climate change. I made a mental note to call one of my colleagues the following week to see if they wanted to bike into work with me a little more often.
By the time I got to the end of North Taylor Ave., and made a left on Fillow Street, I had already noticed some familiar neighbors: the Northern Cardinal, American Robin and the endlessly who-whoing Mourning Doves. Upon reaching the golf course, I took a moment to look out among the vast green and take in the view. Breathing in deeply, and breathing out generously.
These walks and those breaths have offered an opportunity to create space between the good that our earth has to offer and the uncertainty and pain that the pandemic has created. Mother Nature will always be there to provide for us, if we do the work to care for her, protect her and leave her better than we found her. Visiting the Oak Hills Park Nature Trail has become a priority for me, in maintaining wellness of body, mind and soul, a connection with the quiet peace of nature and a reminder that slowing down in life can be rewarding in very unexpected ways.
As I’ve walked the Oak Hills Park Nature Trail this year, I have learned about curiosity from the Blacktail Doe, observance from the squirrel that enjoys folding its hands together (very cute!) and persistence from multiple birds that canvas the Great Lawn on any given day, looking for seeds or prey. These creatures and their surroundings have been an incredible reminder that nature can help us appreciate quite a lot, even in a life-changing year.
It can also provide for us in ways we don’t often think about. The sunshine that keeps us warm while walking on a winter day. The luck that will pop into our lives when we least expect it. I remember for a week straight, I’d been hoping to see the coyotes that had been rumored to travel the trail from the Twin Ledge entrance, but in the back of my mind, didn’t think it would happen. I’d walked the trail multiple times over the course of the year and had not seen more than the droppings they’d left behind.
Unexpectedly, in the course of that week of hoping, wishing and thinking about the rare opportunity, I not only saw the Eastern Coyote lounging out on the Great Lawn, but the next day, I saw a gorgeous Red Fox as I looked ahead on the blue trail, something I had never thought I would have the opportunity to see in my lifetime. It hasn’t happened again, serving as a reminder that when we are given such rare opportunities to hold onto and appreciate them.
As we enter the New Year, my hope for everyone beyond health, safety, equity, peace, love and hope is for everyone to give themselves the opportunity to take lessons from nature, to hope and know that moments of joy can oftentimes be just a walk away. I live in a tiny apartment extremely close to I95, yet, an enjoyable walk of a half-an-hour will take me into an entirely different, fresh, green, healthy world. If you are reading this, please consider taking a few steps up your street, and a few more the next day and look up and around to see what nature has in store for you. When you have gotten yourself to a spot that feels green and fresh, take a moment and breathe in deeply, exhale generously, and let nature embrace you.
What do butterflies at Oak Hills Park in Norwalk and the underserved in our community have in common? Their common bond is the focus of a new grant we hope to be awarded. With a 3-way focus, the Norwalk Bike/Walk Commission is addressing environmental and public health needs through a set of grant applications. The Commission has applied for an AmericaWalks grant for a project set at Oak Hills Park.
The Norwalk Bike/Walk Commission has applied for this grant this grant, and its application will hopefully yield an award this month when announcements are made. The project seeks to bring together a number of Norwalk groups and departments to establish:
A restorative meadow in Oak Hills Park
A walking path in nature
Transportation (accessibility) for the underserved
The Norwalk Bike/Walk Commission and its Pedestrian Committee with community groups such as Norwalk NAACP, SAVE Inc., the Norwalk Housing Authority, Norwalk Senior Center, Norwalk Pollinator Pathway, Norwalk Public Library and city offices/agencies such as Transportation, Mobility & Parking (TMP), Recreation & Parks, Oak Hills Park Authority, and the Health Department. Reaching out to our more underserved population is a goal, along with the restoration of a natural area.
The project site, Oak Hills Park in Norwalk, CT, features a stunning 18-hole public golf course and tennis center. However, it is its 11.5 acres of protected woodlands and open space nature area that will be the setting for this project. This nature area has an oval walking path which will, in fulfillment of the park’s 2016 master plan, meander in and out of a meadow. The ¼-acre meadow is planned to be established in Spring 2021. Funds are needed for materials and assistance in planting pollinator-friendly native plants.
Norwalk’s public transportation system and transportation services may not offer routes or be affordable for some residents to easily enjoy our parks and nature areas. Some residents, because of socio-economic reasons or aging, may benefit from the encouragement to visit Oak Hills Park. This new project seeks to provide transportation, at least for a set period of time, to make available perhaps for the first time for many people to enjoy this “hidden gem” in Norwalk. The effort to restore and establish a pollinator-friendly meadow follows the nationwide effort to create a “pollinator pathway” for the health of our bees, birds, butterflies and other wildlife which need native habitat for migration and lifecycles. The walking path, threading in and out of the meadow, will delight visitors—and knowing it has a higher purpose, makes the walk even more enjoyable.
For more information, contact:
Audrey Cozzarin
Co-Chair, Pedestrian Committee of Norwalk Bike-Walk Commission
203-838-3332
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
A common question about meadows is, "Don't you just let the weeds and grass grow?"
Turns out it's a bit more involved. We found out for ourselves on Friday, September 25, 2020, when the Oak Hills Park Nature Advisory Committee (OHPNAC) and volunteers stuck shovels into the Great Lawn and discovered the land where the new meadow will go is a former dump!
Here is the Great Lawn in 2015 before initial clearing and establishment of the gravel walking path.
We planted donated Milkweed, Goldenrod, Butterfly Weed, and Rubeckia (Black-Eyed Susan), among other natives.
To establish a meadow, we'll need to plant perennial native wildflowers by seed and "plugs" (small seedling plants), ultimately crowding out the lawn grass, a process that can take between 2-5 years. The property we are restoring is approx. 1/4-acre in size.
At Oak Hills Park, we've taken a first step towards establishing a meadow in our nature area's Great Lawn. The walking path which makes an oval circuit in the Great Lawn will meander through a meadow in the years to come.
OHPNAC chair Audrey Cozzarin cut the ribbon to symbolically begin our work to create a bed of native plants by members Elsa Obuchowski, Andrea Malise, Larry Schwartz, and Mark Gartner, joined by volunteers Lisa Thomas of Wilton and John Loprinzo of Norwalk. Many thanks for everyone's hard work chipping through concrete, and unearthing rusted metal fence posts, glass, and bricks. A row of hedges to attract bees was planted along the edge of the walking area near the woods.
OHPNAC ribbon-cutting before the first native plant bed is created.
Our goal is to restore this property with native wildflowers, grasses, and shrubs which will benefit the pollinators we need to keep our environment healthy: Bees, butterflies, birds, and insects in our region. Pollinators worldwide are endangered, so this kind of meadow-creation is gaining popularity here and around the country. Providing food and shelter for these small creatures is important.
Larry and John plant the bee-loving hedges near the woodlands area.
We also thank several informal consultants for current practices in establishing meadows: Owen Wormser who is the author of the 2020 book, "Lawns Into Meadows: Growing a Regenerative Landscape"; Sally Nacker at Norwalk Library who hosts along with Louise Washer and others at the Norwalk River Watershed Assoc., a wonderful and informative lecture series on native gardening (via Zoom); and Nancy McClelland, the Norwalk master gardener in charge of the pollinator gardens at Oyster Shell Park in Norwalk. Oyster Shell Park is a former landfill, so we are kin!
A former dumping-ground, the property has construction material buried, such as this concrete.
We'll post updates as this meadow grows and thrives. We'll need volunteers and funding, so stay tuned! If you wish to help in any way to support this restoration and meadow, contact OHPNAC chair Audrey Cozzarin at 203-838-3332 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Andrea and Lisa watering the plantlings as we finished up for the day.
A big thanks to the Oak Hills Park Authority for their interest and support for nature in the Park, and to Jim Schell the grounds supervisor and his crew for input and assistance going forward. It takes a village and the results will be beautiful.
