Photo: Hooded Merganser, Parameswaran Ponnudurai/Audubon Photography Awards
Huntley Meadows Park, a favorite birdwatching locale for many northern Virginians, is celebrating 50 years. The park’s walking trails and boardwalk provide a good view of waterbirds, shorebirds, and songbirds throughout the year. The boardwalk and woods also attract a steady stream of photographers, many of them winning awards in the annual Audubon Photography Awards competition. The Friends of Huntley Meadows Park invite birders to join them every Monday morning for an informal birdwalk (there’s no leader), which attracts experienced and new birders alike. Make sure you check out the series of interviews with walk participants posted to the Friends’ website.
Great Blue Heron, Kimberly Sharp/Audubon Photography Awards
So, a little history of this 1,500-acre+ natural reserve in the middle of an area of intense urban development: the parkland has been farmland and a dairy, and an entrepreneur in the 1920s dreamed of making the area’s dairy farms a dirigible base. That didn’t work out, and the federal government acquired the land. In the 1940s the Bureau of Public Roads tested asphalt road surfaces at the site, and in the 1950s the Virginia National Guard’s Battery D, 125th Gun Battalion, used the land to protect the nation’s capital from air assault. Then the U.S. Navy conducted classified radio communication research.
Fairfax County started exploring possible uses of the property in the 1960s, while local residents used the area to walk, explore and ride motorcycles. There even was a popular racetrack in the southern part of the property. In 1971 the Navy and the Fairfax County Park Authority (FCPA) signed an agreement allowing citizens to use 400 acres of the property for recreation.
Red-shouldered Hawk and Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Dale Ward/Audubon Photography Awards
In 1971, President Nixon initiated the Legacy of Parks Program that allowed the federal government to transfer surplus land to state and local governments for natural, cultural, and recreational use. Fairfax County acquired the property in 1975. In 1992, FCPA acquired an additional 165 acres of adjacent wetland and upland with the assistance of Ducks Unlimited.
Work to make the park the natural reserve it is today took many years. Even in the 1970s, the meanders of the Potomac River and industrious beavers started to transform a portion of the property from meadow to wetlands. There was open water by 1981. Work in the 1980s removed much of the evidence of past federal use, including buildings and antennae. Grants paid for construction of trails, and the 1980s saw addition of a boardwalk and observation tower. The boardwalk was rebuilt in 1994 and renovated in 2011. The Navy’s access road became the Hike-Bike Trail.
Huntley Meadows Park is hosting a series of educational and volunteer events to celebrate its anniversary. The park’s website has additional information.