Documenting the plants, animals, habitats, and ecology of the Sligo Creek watershed (past and present); pursuing habitat improvements; and providing educational experiences through nature talks and outings.
Natural History Committee Projects
FOSC’s Natural History Committee helps us humans near Sligo Creek Park appreciate the variety and abundance of plants and animals with whom we share the watershed. We do this by promoting citizen sightings of Sligo wildlife, documenting the flora and fauna of Sligo, advocating for new natural areas, helping to conserve existing ones, and organizing talks and outings about our diverse habitats and the many living things that inhabit them.
Spotlight on:
Natural History Chair Michael Wilpers will be
the featured speaker on Tues, Feb 28
You’re invited to Creating Wildlife Habitat Under In Our Powerline Corridors at the Tues, Feb 28 meeting of the Maryland Native Plant Society Monthly Program. This virtual meeting starts at 6:45pm. Registration required at http://www.mdflora.org/event-5180444
Bark Talks and Walks: Identifying Sligo’s Trees Through Their Bark
Ever wonder how to identify the trees that surround us in Sligo Creek park and our neighborhoods? From the smooth gray bark of beech and ironwood to the deeply furrowed bark of walnut and chestnut oak, we looked at easy ways to know what’s towering over us in woodlands throughout the park.
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White Oak (l) and American Beech (r) in the woods
Video of the Bark Talk by Michael Wilpers
Bark Talk Slides
Sligo Creek Park Kiosk Posters
Italian Arum-Emerging Invasive (Dig don’t pull)
Electrofishing in Sligo
Green Herons of Sligo
Takoma Park Tree Study
Great Egrets of Sligo
TSS: New Partnerships
Common Snapping Turtles
Eastern Box Turtles
Bald Eagle in Sligo
A bald eagle seen in Hillwood Neighborhood Park by Ellen Maidman-Turner, Dec 2021.
Habitat Projects
FOSC has been active in a wide range of efforts to create new natural areas and to protect existing ones. An important part of this effort is removal of non-native invasive plants, which is an activity handled by the Remove Invasives Plants team, a part of the Invasives Committee (see the “Invasives” tab of the main menu.)
One of our habitat projects is the shrubby meadow/grassland in the PEPCO powerline corridor between the creek and 16th Place in Hyattsville. Starting in 2008, Pepco agreed to reduce mowing from six times a year to once (in Fall). Five years later, FOSC volunteers counted 120 species of flowering plants, 90 species of native bees, and a nesting pairs of American Kestrels (which are in decline statewide). View the Powerline Plant Survey list and the Habitat Projects page.
We are partnering with Montgomery Parks on another managed meadow located along Sligo Creek Parkway across from the Golf Course near Forest Glen Rd. And advocacy for less frequent mowing along the Parkway resulted in a meadow project north of Dennis Avenue that started in Spring 2020.
Habitat improvements to the Wheaton Branch stormwater ponds is an ongoing concern that FOSC is pursuing with the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection.
A tour of the managed meadow on Sligo Creek Parkway across from the Sligo golf course led by Carole Bergmann.
FOSC Wildlife Lists
One of the Natural History Committee’s ongoing priorities is creating up-to-date inventories for much of the watershed’s wildlife and maintaining older ones as historical snapshots of our rich flora and fauna. These inventories are available on the Plants of Sligo and the Animals of Sligo pages.
One of our most ambitious efforts to date is a survey of Sligo’s native plants (completed by John Parrish and RG Steiman in 2003), which gives their locations, habitats, and abundances of 372 species in a fully searchable database.
Since then, we have developed inventories of 90 species of native bees, 68 species of nesting birds, 45 species of butterflies, 16 species of fish and the flowering times of 120 species of plants. We also have lists for Sligo’s frogs, salamanders, reptiles, and mammals. These digitized historic surveys (dating from the 1930s onward) allow individuals and policymakers to see the changes in Sligo’s flora and fauna over time.
The Natural History committee has mapped these sightings to their corresponding Sligo Creek section maps, available on the Maps of Sligo Creek page, which also includes topographic, trail, land use, stormwater, features, and historic maps – there are 33 in all.
Continuously updated lists of plants and animals can be generated on demand through the citizen science projects iNaturalist and eBird. On eBird, one can generate lists of birds seen or heard in several “hot spots” in Sligo, including the Wheaton Branch and Kemp Mill stormwater ponds and the creek mainstem. In iNaturalist, one can create lists of plants, birds, insects, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals through a “project” devoted exclusively to the Sligo watershed titled “Fauna and Flora of the Sligo Creek Watershed.”
All of these wildlife lists are the work of amateur and professional naturalists, often in collaboration with outside organizations and government agencies.
Sightings
The “Sightings” page on our old website was one of its most popular features, allowing Sligo residents to share their wildlife observations with others and to follow what was being seen and heard in Sligo throughout the year.
In 2020, we moved this activity to iNaturalist, working with local naturalist Stephen Davies to create a “project” within iNaturalist devoted exclusively to the Sligo watershed. The Fauna and Flora of the Sligo Creek Watershed project now lists more than 600 observers making more than 10,000 observations of nearly 1,600 species of plants, mammals, birds, frogs, salamanders, snakes, and insects in Sligo. Report your sighting on iNaturalist! Learn how here.
For more information on how to post your sightings on either iNaturalist or eBird, and to read about others’, go to the FOSC “Sightings” page under the Natural History tab.
FOSC archives of animal and plant sightings 2014-2018 continue to be available in the FOSC Sightings Archive. We will be adding all the sightings from 2018 and through the first months of 2020 to the Archive in the coming months.
One of the Natural History Committee’s ongoing priorities is creating up-to-date inventories for much of the watershed’s wildlife and maintaining older ones as historical snapshots of our rich flora and fauna. These inventories are available on the Plants of Sligo and the Animals of Sligo pages.
One of our most ambitious efforts to date is a survey of Sligo’s native plants (completed by John Parrish and RG Steiman in 2003), which gives their locations, habitats, and abundances of 372 species in a fully searchable database.
Since then, we have developed inventories of 90 species of native bees, 68 species of nesting birds, 45 species of butterflies, 16 species of fish and the flowering times of 120 species of plants. We also have lists for Sligo’s frogs, salamanders, reptiles, and mammals. These digitized historic surveys (dating to the 1930s) allow individuals and policymakers to see the changes in Sligo’s flora and fauna over time.
The Natural History committee has mapped these sightings to their corresponding Sligo Creek section maps, available on the Maps of Sligo Creek page, which also includes topographic, trail, land use, stormwater, features, and historic maps – there are 33 in all.
Continuously updated lists of plants and animals can be generated on demand through the citizen science projects iNaturalist and eBird. With eBird, one can generate lists of birds seen or heard in several “hot spots” in Sligo, including the Wheaton Branch and Kemp Mill stormwater ponds and the creek mainstem. In iNaturalist, one can create lists of plants, birds, insects, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals through a “project” devoted exclusively to the Sligo watershed titled “Fauna and Flora of the Sligo Creek Watershed.”
All of these wildlife lists are the work of amateur and professional naturalists, often in collaboration with outside organizations and government agencies.
The “Sightings” page on our old website was one of its most popular features, allowing Sligo residents to share their wildlife observations with others and to follow what was being seen and heard in Sligo throughout the year.
In 2020, we moved this activity to iNaturalist, working with local naturalist Stephen Davies to create a “project” within iNaturalist devoted exclusively to the Sligo watershed. The Fauna and Flora of the Sligo Creek Watershed project now lists more than 600 observers making more than 10,000 observations of nearly 1,600 species of plants, mammals, birds, frogs, salamanders, snakes, and insects in Sligo. Report your sighting on iNaturalist! Learn how here.
Another place to post sightings – and to follow those of others — is through eBird, which has established “hot spots” in a number of areas of Sligo, including the stormwater ponds on Wheaton Branch and in Kemp Mill and along the Sligo Creek mainstem.
For more information on how to post your sightings on either iNaturalist or eBird, and to read about others’, go to the “Sightings” page under the Natural History tab.
FOSC archives of animal and plant sightings 2014-2018 continue to be available in the FOSC Sightings Archive. We will be adding all the sightings from 2018 and through the first months of 2020 to the Archive in the coming months.
FOSC has been active in a wide range of efforts to create new natural areas and to protect existing ones. An important part of this effort is removal of non-native invasive plants, which is an activity handled by the Remove Invasives Plants team, a part of the Invasives Committee (see the “Invasives” tab of the main menu.)
One of our habitat projects, the shrubby meadow/grassland in the Pepco corridor between the creek and 16th Place in Hyattsville. Starting in 2008, mowing was reduced from six times a year to once (in Fall). Five years later, FOSC volunteers counted 120 species of flowering plants, 90 species of native bees, and a nesting pairs of American Kestrels (which are in decline statewide).
We are partnering with Montgomery Parks on another managed meadow located along Sligo Creek Parkway across from the Golf Course near Forest Glen Rd. And advocacy for less frequent mowing along the Parkway resulted in a meadow project north of Dennis Avenue that started in Spring 2020.
Habitat improvements to the Wheaton Branch stormwater ponds is an ongoing concern that FOSC is pursuing with the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection.
A tour of the managed meadow on Sligo Creek Parkway across from the Sligo golf course led by Carole Bergmann.