Mokka mit Schlag » Nature

American Bird Grasshopper, Schistocerca americana
Ridgewood Reservoir, Queens, NY, 2007-10-20

Steve Nanz found and later ID’d this monster yesterday at Ridgewood Reservoir. It’s one of the largest grasshoppers in North America. When spooked, it flies into a nearby tree, hence the name. It’s uncommon to rare this far north. Neither Steve nor I had ever seen one before. It seems to be more of a southern species. Possibly like yesterday’s Red-banded Hairstreak, global warming may be pushing its range north.
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Red-banded Hairstreak, Calycopis cecrops
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2007-10-20

This quarter-sized butterfly is only supposed to be a vagrant this far North, but its range has been increasing. I’ve seen it two weekends in a row now in the Botanic Gardens, despite the lateness of the season. It perches on a flower and rubs its wings together in opposite directions, though I’m not sure why. I’ve never seen any other butterfly do this.

Spotted Cucumber Beetle, Diabrotica undecimpunctata
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2007-10-14

These colorful, ladybug-sized beetles can be major crop pests. This is the second one I’ve seen in the area. The first was in Prospect Park a couple of months ago, though I didn’t recognize that one at the time.

Steve Nanz has published a page of photos he’s taken at Ridgewood Reservoir this year. Worth checking out if you’d like to know just what we might be losing. He’s a much better photographer than I am. I think my favorite’s this baby snapping turtle heading toward the lake. It probably just hatched:

There’s a lot of other wildlife living at the reservoir including many warblers, wrens, woodcocks, waterfowl, and other birds. We haven’t had anybody who really knows plants do an inventory yet, though we have identified at least one New York State threatened plant species there; and we’ve been inventorying for less than a year so we only have two seasons worth of data. We don’t really know what species may be overwintering there yet. It would be a shame to lose this before we even know what we have.

My friend Rob Jett put this video together. Enjoy. Then act.

Last night Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe confirmed that the “listening sessions” about the future of Ridgewood Reservoir were a sham. Despite its so-called Million Trees initiative, the Parks Dept. has always planned on bulldozing over 20 acres of existing trees and native habitat in probably the single healthiest forest anywhere in Queens and Brooklyn to put in ballfields and astroturf. This is being done to expand Highland Park, which currently consists of about 100 acres of poorly maintained, underused ballfields. Apparently they’d rather build new fields than fix and maintain the old ones.

The claims made back in the summer that no decisions had been made were lies. We’ve uncovered evidence that the Parks Dept. had decided at least as far back as May and probably earlier exactly what they wanted to do. I guess they were hoping the public comments would rubber stamp their decision. However, when locals expressed their strong preference for passive, low-impact uses like jogging, walking, bicycling, and nature; and their active distaste for any more soccer and baseball, the Parks Dept. ignored them.

Ridgewood Reservoir has benefited from 40 years of neglect. Precisely because the Parks Dept. couldn’t go in and spend millions of dollars destroying nature like they did in Central Park, Prospect Park, and other city parks, it’s actually in pretty good shape today. Obviously the Parks Dept. thinks this must be fixed. Why have virgin forest when you can turn it into a graffiti-ridden cricket pitch or trampled down astroturf?

It’s obvious that the Parks Dept. doesn’t really care what the public thinks about the future of this unique site, and trying to convince them is pointless. Listening to them is of limited use since they’ve proven you can’t trust them. I suspect the next step will be to work with the local council members, state senators, and assembly int he affected areas to put pressure on parks from above and see where that gets us. At least some of them have been listening to their constituents and gone on record as opposing the plan. Time is pressing though.

Surveyors have been out at the site making plans for tearing down the berm in basin 3 and knocking down the trees to make way for the ballfields. I suspect the Parks Dept. wants to present this as a fait accompli before any more politicians or lawyers can get involved.

If you’re interested, you can find out a lot more at Save Ridgewood Reservoir. Drop me an e-mail if you’d like to work on preserving this unique area. I’ll let you know when the next meeting is.