We're formally opening our newest preserve -- the Danner Family Preserve, spanning the Yorktown-Putnam Valley border -- at 11 a.m. on Thursday, May 22. The preserve is on Indian Hill Road, just north of the Jefferson Valley Mall, in Yorktown (although the entrance is across the town line, in Putnam Valley), and anyone who would like to drop by for the opening is welcome.
 |
It's a fascinating preserve -- more than half of its 28 acres is relatively flat, and thick with shrubs and small trees (like the flowering dogwood, pictured at left), some native, others invasive. We went there for a quick visit this morning and without even really trying heard 18 species of birds singing, including red-breasted grosbeak, ovenbird, black-and-white warbler, common yellowthroat and wood thrush. The air was redolent with the scent of blooming flowers.
An old farm road loops through the preserve (this morning a farmer was irrigating his field across Indian Hill Road), and gets you in the middle of all the bird activity and to the edge of a more mature forest that makes up the southern section of the preserve.
It's a beautiful place, very different from most of our land. We're grateful to Eugene and Josephine Danner for donating it to us.