Life & Death for Breakfast

By Sally Sears

If the great blue heron knew we were watching, he didn’t show it.

His fiery yellow eyes glared into the cold water of the pond in Rock Creek beside the old granite quarry.

Legs like stilts upheld his football sized body, blue like the water.

A few feet upstream, a sudden curve of a slick black comma told us an otter was noiselessly working the same pond.

Susan Berthelot took a knee, her long camera lens at a perfect horizontal. She caught the instant the heron’s neck uncurled. The beak came up empty.

One leg bent backwards, moving the heron inches upstream. Another strike. Nothing.

A minute passed. The otter dove under. Eric Bowles’ view finder did not move from his eye.

A third lunge of that impossibly long beak. Success. A silver fish, maybe four inches long, wiggled in the heron’s bill. It kept moving as it slid down the throat.

Life and death for breakfast.

We turned to each other wide eyed.  The hunt wowed the nine quiet birdwatchers on that cold Sunday when Georgia Audubon searched the public parks in Morningside for the Christmas Bird Count.

Breakfast is life or death for many birds. Finding enough to eat is constant. Georgia Audubon Conservation director Adam Betuel reminds me birds cannot store much fat because they have to be light enough to fly. Sothey eat all the time.

Life or death for the fish, too.  It grew from minnow to meal in the healthier habitat of the South Fork of Peachtree Creek, joining a growing number of living things calling the urban watershed home.  This critical flyway along Peachtree Creek’s tributaries is important enough the US Fish and Wildlife Service named it one of only 17 Urban Wildlife Refuges in the nation.

The heron and the otter were still fishing as we moved away to count other birds.

By noon we'd seen 46 different species of birds in about 2 miles of creek flowing through Herbert Taylor Park, Zonolite Park and Morningside Nature Preserve.

When we finally put our cameras down leader Eric Bowles reached deep into his I-Bird digital records to compare our totals to prior years.

It revealed the best kind of reward.

Every year in Zonolite alone we've seen more species.

24 in 2018. 28 the next year. 29 in 2020 and then this year, a new record.

31 different kinds of birds.

This steady growth in species is a payoff for the work of restoring native plants to the creek banks. Birds and humans are finding these parks a good place to be as a new year begins.

That cold Sunday was two days before Georgia's runoff election. In the urgent days that followed, it was easy to forget the victory in nature.

The goals of this trail and creek restoration stretch well into the future. Still, the rewards are all around us, waiting for us to pay attention. One bird at a time.

Floating Through Morningside

By Sally Sears

With a whoosh, our inflatable kayak filled with air as we launched our adventure on the South Fork of Peachtree Creek. My friend Amy Cromwell and I had mapped out our plan to float the creek from Emory to Morningside’s Zonolite Park, and a brilliant Saturday morning was the perfect time for our trip.

We slid down a steep bank at Clifton Road, noting the din of traffic on the corridor overhead and dropped the kayak into the creek. Wading into the water, we covered the first 15 feet easily, guiding the kayak as it bumped into rocks, and stumbling some in the boots of our chest-high waders. The next 100 yards were tougher. Water seeped into our leaky boots; rocks punched at the kayak, testing its hull.  Would it hold? Whose idea was this anyway?

Then, at Sage Hill one sweet pool was deep enough for us to float a few yards. Delicious! Too soon I felt the rocks through the bottom of the kayak as it flexed, so I  got out to walk. The water level was higher at the South Fork’s junction with Peavine Creek, so we were able to float there. We passed easily under the bridge at Briarcliff Road and into Herbert Taylor Park. The sand bar ahead held company: a mom and two children startled as we floated past. Our boots were heavy with water, our arms scratched from overhanging branches we’d tangled with earlier. Still, Amy and I felt pretty righteous.

At the next turn, a blue heron stared us into silence. The creek was quiet; dogwoods lifted their first red leaves skyward, and the sun caught on mica flakes, sparkling them to life. Past the bridge at Johnson Road and the US Geological Survey monitoring station, the creek spread out and grew shallow again.

Walking, I discovered that the sandy banks weren’t as firm as they were upstream. They sucked at my boots.

We neared Zonolite Park, where the bank sloped enough to take out the kayak easily, but the last 100 yards held the biggest challenge. The three-foot-wide trunk of a poplar spanned the creek at water level, blocking mounds of styrofoam and human-tossed junk. We tried lifting the kayak up the steep bank, but kudzu made the climb too treacherous. We considered shoving the kayak through the junk, but Amy found other logs beneath the poplar. Then, in one graceful maneuver, she scaled the trunk, cracked one of the submerged logs with her feet, and tugged the kayak through the mess to the final sand bar. Bolstered by her success, I scrambled up and over and felt my boot slip on the bark. Face first, I landed in the creek.  Total immersion! Cold, wet, and done!

Time to head back to Emory. Our three-hour float ended with a seven-minute drive to our starting point. What an adventure. We are already planning our next float.

South Fork Conservancy installs pedestrian bridge to connect trails along Peachtree Creek

By Atlanta Intown

After years of work and fundraising,  South Fork Conservancy saw the fruition of a dream as its 175-foot Confluence pedestrian bridge was lifted into place by one of the largest cranes in North America on Aug. 21.

The $2.5 million state-of-the-art bridge lies northwest of I-85 between Piedmont Road and Lindbergh Drive. In addition to connecting nearby neighborhoods and parkland, it will also provide linkages to three regional trails: The Atlanta BeltLine, PATH400, and eventually the Peachtree Creek Greenway.

“This is an impressive project which will connect 25 acres of new greenspace to one of the most park-deprived areas of the city,” said Atlanta City Councilmember Jennifer Ide. “Having easy access to natural areas is critical now more than ever, and this bridge, made possible by South Fork Conservancy, will deliver nature trails and creek views to thousands of people.”

Constructed out of Corten steel and concrete decking, it required one of the largest cranes in North America to lift it into place. Most importantly, the bridge is designed so as not to disturb the health of the creek. The bridge also features an ADA accessible ramp.

“This is one of the most ambitious projects our organization has ever supported,” said Michael Halicki, Park Pride executive director. “South Fork Conservancy is blazing new trails and taking a bold step with this pedestrian bridge to connect Atlantans to more greenspaces and natural waterways.”

To date, South Fork Conservancy has completed five miles of trails, including catalyzing the development of three parks, along Peachtree Creek’s South Fork. The Conservancy was recently awarded one of the first-ever Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Act (GOSA) grants to further its goal of increasing creek access as a source of recreation, inspiration, education, and community connectivity for all Atlantans.