All five of us birders in Forest Hills, Queens, New York will have much better access to Willow Lake in the south end of Flushing Meadows Park. Why? Because of a new project, estimated to be completed by Summer of 2010 that will
provide two decorative entrance gates, pathways, planting and other site improvements at entrances to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park located at 73rd Terrace over the Van Wyck Expressway, and 72nd Road over the Grand Central Parkway.
Access to anything but the very north end of Willow Lake was not obtainable in recent years, at least not legally or without a slog through a phragmite jungle and lots of mud. This will cut my walk to decent birding habitat by more than half and makes me very, very, very happy.
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.
Corey, part of me hopes this will happens if it makes you very very very happy. But, a part of me prefers that Willow Lake remain inaccessible. As much as I want to be able to bird the area without having my clothes ripped by briars and mud oozing from my boots, I have too many photos of Meadow Lake egrets and ducks eating and swimming next to garbage. I’ve seen too many robins strangled by kite string. Flushing-Meadows Corona Park is used by thousands of Queens residents, mostly immigrant families. The park totally overflows on a nice summer weekend. Which is great, but I wouldn’t want that overflow around Willow Lake. I want it to be a quiet peaceful nature sanctuary.
How about this? An entrance with a gate, and only the five birders who live in Forest Hills have the keys.
@Donna: I shall put up such a gate as soon as the walkway reopens…who wants a key?
🙂