When you’re home to more than 250 acres of flora, you don’t have to stray far to uncover a virtual menagerie of fauna within it. Cormorants and wood ducks draw zig-zags in the duckweed of Twin Lakes, while Red-tailed Hawks hunt skinks and black squirrels from far overhead. There’s even a cranky snapping turtle or two. But for every rabbit or warbler out to make itself seen in the NYBG, there’s another species living out its life away from our cameras! As Director of the Forest, Jessica A. Schuler has turned some of her focus toward the elusive creatures living in our woodland.

Through a collaboration with Jason Munshi-South of CUNY Baruch College and Mark Weckel of Mianus River Gorge Preserve, Jessica is doing her part to help the pair document the many animals living throughout the city and Westchester county, as well as the effects of the urban environment on evolutionary biology. In the case of the NYBG, this is done by arranging four motion-activated, all-weather cameras in locations throughout the Garden’s 50-acre Forest, ready to capture the movements of any and all woodland wanderers that might amble by. And after only a month on site, capture they did! Calibrated to go off at even the slightest hint of a passing animal, these cameras accurately snapped shots of several familiar species lurking in our woods.
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If the grow-at-home herb garden went over with your child about as well as that “educational” video game you got him for his birthday, and dinner salads are essentially your little Superman’s kryptonite, there’s hope yet for any parent: the Urban Farm Tour series. Last time out, we explored the borough that hip-hop built (depending on which generation you speak with, anyway), guiding visitors through a few of the most well-established and promising Bronx farms to support the urban agriculture movement. Now, we’re getting the kids in on the act.

On Saturday, August 18, the Bronx Trolley sets out to celebrate the influence of youth on our gardens. This time, we’ll be featuring two significant community plots, Brook Park and Drew Gardens, along with the school garden of C.S. 211. These are only a handful of the major hubs in our borough for greening, growing, and outdoor summer programming. And there’s more than enough activities during our daytrip to turn your kids into miniature green thumbs, with introductions to vegetable growing, a beekeeping mini-workshop, and time spent learning the ropes as urban chicken farmers.
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Monet’s Garden keeps changing with the season! As summer wears on, the vert Monet architecture mingles with new and complementing florescence.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen