Just a reminder that it is Tick Season!
Please Join Us!
The Friends of Huntley Meadows Park (FOHMP) Annual Meeting will be held on Sunday, June 2, 2019 from 3-5pm in Huntley’s Norma Hoffman Visitor Center (3701 Lockheed Blvd, Alexandria, VA 22306).
Anyone interested is encouraged to join us to learn what FOHMP has accomplished in FY18-19. Members are eligible to vote for next year’s board members. The meeting will be followed by a walk through the wetlands.
President's Message
By Cathy Ledec
Dear Friends,
Your voices matter! In earlier newsletters I have mentioned this and here we have an important specific example that reinforces this.
Led by Lee District Supervisor Jeff McKay, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors (BOS) voted unanimously on February 5, 2019 to remove the two conceptual paved bike trails from the county’s Bicycle Master Plan and Comprehensive Plan. The success of this effort was grounded in joining our voices together and expressing to the BOS that this should be a priority.
Your voices, along with those of 4 organizations, delivered more than 6,500 expressions of support for these Plan Amendments to remove these trails from the County’s Plans. The unanimous vote tells an important story: Our voices are strong and represent a critical mass of opinion when they are joined together. The Friends of Huntley Meadows Park extend heartfelt THANK YOU to all our Members and to the organizations who supported this effort.continue reading
23rd Annual Birdathon
Lindsay Schneider, the 2018 Resource Management (RM) Intern said of her time working with Huntley Meadows Park (HMP) staff and volunteers, “Their wisdom and passion for nature has been inspiring and incredibly beneficial in furthering my understanding of species and their habitats.” Lindsay went on to say, “This intern-ship taught me so much about water quality, land stewardship, invasive species management and habitat en-hancement for native plant and wildlife species. The experiences I am having this summer will greatly aid in helping me achieve my future career goals.”
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Monday Morning Bird Walk
By Harry Glasgow
Those who look at nature in a sort of sentimental, Disneyish way are often shattered when they witness
some of the harsh realities of the actual world. More than once, I’ve tried to comfort people who watched a
Hawk swoop down on their bird feeder, grab one of “their” Chickadees, and then calmly tear it apart in their
yard. They are devastated by this ruthlessness. 
Photo by Ed Eder.
A previous edition of this newsletter contained a bit about brood parasitism, another fact of nature that some find appalling. Brood parasites lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, and do not provide any parental care for their own offspring. Care that the "hosts" provide to the young parasites is care denied to their own young. This can have a detrimental effect on the reproductive success of the hosts and may affect their population numbers as a consequence.
If we can look at these occurrences without judging them by human social conventions, and instead see them as an integral part of nature, our joy of being outside will grow. However you perceive the creation of our world, what has developed is a natural outcome of that creation. The Hawk taking the Chickadee is an expression of the natural world. The Hawk has to eat, too. And its diet includes Chickadees. The nest parasitism discussed in our last newsletter is also a natural behavior for some species. The nest parasites we encounter in North America are usually Brown-headed Cowbirds. Parasitism by Cowbirds is increasing and has been reported as high as 70% (i.e., 70% of found parasitized nests had Cowbird eggs in them). The main reason for this increase is probably habitat fragmentation.
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Where Does My Contribution Go?
The Friends of Huntley Meadows Park supports a wide range of programs throughout the Park. Your membership dues and donations are critical to the success of our organization.
Some items we fund(ed):
- Educate the public and the Fairfax County Park Authority on the impacts of Dominion Virginia Power’s proposed changes to the easement at the south boundary of the Park. (See page 2 for details.)
- Creation of Huntley Meadows Patches, now on sale in the Norma Hoffman Visitor Center (VC) gift shop.
- Scholarships to support three interns for the summer of 2016. These interns will complete much needed programing projects. But most importantly they will assist Staff during day camps that educate and enter-tain our next generation of naturalist and environmental stewards.
- Environmental protection apprentice who will study with Park experts to learn best practices for wetland, forest, and meadow management.
- Quarterly newsletter to keep our 450+ members up-to-date on what is happening at the Park. Newsletter expenses have fallen with our “GO GREEN” initiative to provide more newsletters by email.
- Printing of various Park brochures and the frog stickers that adorn so many young visitors.
- Specialized training for Staff. This is usually several thousand dollars annually.
- School trips for schools throughout Fairfax County and neighboring counties. Kids are our very best ambassadors - we hear from many visitors that their kids visited on a school field trip and wanted to come back to show their families what a special place Huntley Meadows Park is.
- A donation to the Raptor Conservancy, one of our biggest entertainers on Wetlands Awareness Day. The contribution is used to feed and care for beautiful birds of prey that can no longer live in the wild.
- Generate merchandise to sell in the Visitor Center gift shop, e.g., hats, shirts, magnets, and lapel pins.
- Purchase of tools, and supplies for trail restoration, planting, invasive removal, and field studies.
- Production of the annual photography show, which celebrates local photographers and their work snapped at the Park.
- An ad for FOHMP in the playbill for West Potomac High School’s production of Starlight Express. West Potomac students help us each spring with watershed cleanups.
Who We Are
The Friends of Huntley Meadows Park was founded in 1985 and is a nonprofit organization of individuals dedicated to the protection of Fairfax County's premier wetland wildlife sanctuary.
FOHMP was organized exclusively for charitable, scientific, and educational purposes and operates under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Monday Morning Birdwalk
The Monday Birdwalk takes place every week, rain or shine, at 7 AM, is free of charge, requires no reservation, and is open to all. Birders meet in the parking lot at the Park's entrance at 3701 Lockheed Blvd, Alexandria, VA. Questions should be directed to Park staff during normal business hours at (703) 768-2525.
Friends of Historic Huntley
Friends of Historic Huntley is a non-profit citizen group committed to working with the Fairfax County Park Authority to assure the preservation, restoration and appropriate use of Historic Huntley and to enhance the public’s knowledge of the site and the broader historic development of the neighborhood.