NY Tifft Nature Preserve - Trip Log May 19

Off to the edges of the Mid-Atlantic to far Western New York State for a long weekend trip with my daughter Em, her daughter Kenzey (13), son Aiden (8) for a Devonian adventure. Though this area is far removed from home, it does have a marked impact upon where we live in Central PA and Delaware. Highly charged low pressure systems fill with ocean moisture  and combine with cold fronts that pour out of the Arctic over the Great Lakes with strong winds to deliver some mighty big Nor-Easters and blizzards.  Lake Erie makes its own weather and with its abundant snow-making capability, storms roar southward to deliver our classic "lake-effect storms." Lake Erie, like all of the Great Lakes, is a fluid memory of the Ice Ages. One of our first stops was to sit on its shore and face the sunset with the remains of a once booming industrial coast at our backs. We had a paleo-lecture to attend so we couldn't stay quite till dark, but it was magic enough to imagine a mile-thick sheet of ice over our heads.

Aiden and Em snuggle for a chilly sunset on a calm but cold Lake Erie beach.

Another one of our first stops was to visit Tifft Nature Preserve just south of the First Ward district in Buffalo. This site has a heavy industrial-use history but is now blanketed in green meadows, wetlands, and forest. It was hard to remember that this was once a landfill and shipment base for coal, grain, and iron ore.  We walked through a bird-filled woods literally saturated with a wave of colorful migrating warblers where it seemed hundreds of birds were all singing at once. Yellow warblers were especially abundant and they darted here and there like bright speckles of feathered sunshine flickering through the leaves.

Cargill grain complex in the background.

Emily's capture of a Baltimore Oriole.

Emily got this great shot of a Magnolia Warbler.

Another Em capture: Bay-Breasted Warbler

Erie's industrial coast from Pennsylvania through New York is recovering its natural profile from a century of heavy industry, economic decline, and site abandonment.  Never out of view along the boardwalks and trails are the visible hulks of grain silos and steel plants.  But a transformation is taking place as Rust Belt ruin is giving way to a new green economy that capitalizes on outdoor recreation and nature appreciation. "Buffalo Rising" is a social, economic, and environmental movement that incorporates re-wilding practices as green remediation of heavily polluted wastelands while offering residents and visitors new ways to enjoy the waterfront on hike-and-bike trails, lake access for paddlers and fisherfolk, and new opportunities for the outdoor industry to thrive here.

One of hundreds of yellow warblers flitting through a very young forest.

Em tracked this Yellow Warbler into the sun for a beautiful back-lit portrait.

From the deck of the Tifft Nature Center - another Yellow Warbler!

Some of the serious environmental issues that plague Lake Erie are similar to our home waters of the Chesapeake Bay: overloading of nutrients and algae blooms, invasive species, and poor water quality. And, like at home, there are a boatload of environmental programs and organizations working hard to address these issues. There was a sense of great pride among the residents we met on our hike and certainly at the fossil dig we participated in the following day at Penn Dixie Preserve, that the lake and its shores were on the mend. Though the loss of heavy industrial jobs over the past several decades  has hurt terribly, the environmental field offers new directions and possibilities.

This corridor, an old factory road, was dripping with warblers!

Far back from the shores of the post-industrial wasteland is a hopeful economic landscape composed of precision metal manufacturing and other highly technical (and less polluting) industries. One family who intersected our hike was talking about a technical training program for their high school child.  The old industries of grain storage, coal, and steel aren't coming back despite politically charged promises that seem almost outdated and out of place in today's post industrial economy.

Aiden stands on the edge of a willow wood, partially flooded by beavers that create even more habitat.

Eco-economies are highly adaptable and need the creative energies of new generations to envision and put in place healthier more resilient infrastructures. Thinking like a beaver, with the right amount of support and structure, whole new environments can be built that reflect restoration as well as renewal.

Orioles were everywhere!

For mega-ecoregions like the Great Lakes old industrial identities die hard, while for specific communities within the Lake Erie coastal zones like Buffalo, NY, and Erie, PA, local efforts to re-imagine a wilder and greener future offer a lot of hope and excitement. We definitely felt this at Tifft Nature Preserve and Penn Dixie the next day. I'd like to spend more time here to fully explore the rewilding shores of Erie. Put that on my list.

Tifft Nature Preserve is bounded by the Southtowns of Buffalo and a redeveloping green waterfront.  Google Maps.

Notes:

Tifft Nature Preserve is owned and managed by the Buffalo Museum of Science and is continuing to transform the landscape. http://www.tifft.org/tifft/