Seneca Bluffs Restoration Day!!!

Seneca Bluffs Park, one of the city's most amazing natural areas, received an extreme makeover this week when over 120 volunteers descended on the park for a restoration work day.

Seneca Bluffs is a 15-acre peninsula nestled right on the Buffalo River. It's a key hotspot for wildlife, from migrating birds to basking turtles to wandering deer. The park is also heavily used by the local community for hiking, fishing, dog-walking, bird-watching and just relaxing.

Volunteers leveled huge swaths of stubborn, invasive Mugwort and Japanese Knotweed that was taking over the park. We then planted fast-growing native species of shrubs and trees with high wildlife value, including maples, serviceberry, birch, buttonbush, redbud, dogwood, butternut, walnut, bayberry, sycamore, cherry, oak, sumac, elderberry and viburnum.

A big thanks goes out to Riverkeeper's partners in this project! HSBC Bank provided over 100 hard-working volunteers as well as trees and shrubs for the effort, and Erie County Department of Environment and Planning and US Fish & Wildlife Service came throughwith vibrant group leaders, equipment and gritty volunteers. Ecology & Environment chipped in with inspiration and ecological expertise in the form of Paul Fuhrmann, one of the original site designers. Erie County Parks brought us a huge load of mulch on short notice.

All in all it was a great day!!! We're looking forward to the next tree planting at Seneca at the end of October. Join us!

July 9th - Doing it in the rain.

Nearly 30 people showed up at The Bailey Peninsula in the rain continuing our efforts at the most beautiful piece of land in South Buffalo. Students from McKinley and South Park met on the bridge and joined forces. We have not been on site for five weeks and it showed. Japanese knotweed encroached on our "retaken" plot. Also, some ......(bad word).....park patron damaged our bench. We repaired it, and placed the roof/table braces. Hopefully, in two weeks the structure will be how we left it, so we can continue progress on it. I think once it is finished, it will get a little more respect from park patrons. The other negative human behavior occuring is cutting the duck bill (all metal-because the wood ones were burnt) tree support wires.

It is impressive to witness teenagers overcome obvious setbacks and persevere and a joy to see the future has capable environmental stewards. Thank you RiverKeeper for keeping winds in my sail during stormy weather.

We will be meeting every other Wednesday until August 20th, RAIN or shine....feel free to join us....after all...it is public space....and voluntary.

All in all, it was a productive day. Check out the entire slideshow by going to The Green Team blog.