Good morning, DMV! It’s Thursday, April 16.
I’m experimenting with sending this newsletter at 5 a.m. Eastern time, so I’m landing in your inbox two hours earlier than usual today.
🐦⬛ Calling all bird and nature lovers: Next Wednesday — which is Earth Day — I invite you to join me at Georgetown Waterfront Park to see purple martins that have moved into a park that was once an industrial area and parking lot.
I’ve never seen these birds, but I’m meeting Meg Hardon, a board member of the Friends of Georgetown Waterfront Park, and Dan Rauch, fisheries and wildlife biologist with the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment, to learn about them and this park.
I’d love for you to come along to do a group Q&A with Meg and Dan, but also to take photos that we can share back to readers in our Daily Dose.
Meg shared with me some background about this park on the Potomac River:
“In the 80s, the waterfront was a parking lot and a site for DC to store trucks, salt, etc. That is a whole long story on the development of the idea and eventual building of a park,” she wrote to me in an email. (You read about the park’s history here.)
In 2018, Friends of Georgetown Waterfront Park looked at ideas to raise awareness about the natural environment and history of the waterfront, she said. They decided to add bird houses, but they were vandalized. Then at Dan suggestion, they put up a purple martin house in 2021, according to Meg.
(Courtesy of Meg Hardon)
“The house attracted martins right away and their numbers have grown every summer,” she said. “Last year we added two more houses … The martins arrive like clockwork each year. I live right there so I am able to track their arrivals and departures.”
Purple martins migrate to North America during our warmer months and head to South America during our winters. Meg said last week that the scouts — the first martins observed back at an active colony site each year — had arrived, and their numbers were increasing by the day.
(Courtesy of Meg Hardon)
Here are details for the Earth Day meetup with Meg and Dan:
When: 9 a.m. Wednesday, April 22
Where: The purple martin houses, just west of the fountain in Georgetown Waterfront Park which is at the foot of Wisconsin Ave. NW.
Please RSVP: Hit reply and email me, so I can get an approximate headcount. Thanks!
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📰 News around the DMV
📷 Your joy
(Judy Furash)
Judy Furash, 78, a resident of the Wheaton/Silver Spring area of Maryland, sent in this photo from an outing with old friends to remember a friend.
“On Monday April 6, Brookside Gardens were very crowded with people still celebrating Easter and Spring, but I was there with two friends remembering a dear friend who died two years ago,” Judy wrote in her submission.
“She had lived in the Netherlands for many years, and tulips were her favorite. The multi colored display didn’t disappoint! Our original group of 7 women, ‘Playgroup,’ that has existed for almost 44 years has a commemorative brick to her in the garden and a couple to our friendship. The first one we did says ‘Playgroup est. 1982 40th Anniversary kids grow we play on.’”
🌷
