Starting in 2020, I worked with volunteers to move some of the native plant bounty from my yard into Upton Hill Regional Park, in Arlington. What started as an isolated project has evolved into one element of a larger ASNV program, Stretch Our Parks.

As an important part of our citizen science work, we’re looking to establish some baseline bird abundance data for a pair of parks, specifically for Upton Hill Park in Arlington and Four Mile Run Park in Alexandria.

What few people know is that there is a lot of natural habitat at Upton Hill, and that habitat attracts a lot of migratory birds. In that sense, Upton Hill is a microcosm of northern Virginia – we have lots of people and lots of development, but we also have lots of birds, especially in spring and fall.

In November 2020, ASNV became part of an Upton Hill Regional Park support team that has worked together to improve both habitat restoration and activities welcoming to underserved groups.

An urban park with a mini-golf course, a waterpark, and a ropes course might not be the first place you’d visit for birdwatching and nature exploration but if you passed it by, you’d be missing a rare habitat.

Northern Virginia Regional Parks and Arlington NAACP have resumed their popular nature walk series.