This Week At Nixon Park 2025
The long, hot, humid days have and frequent rain make for a vibrant green July. As summer flowers proliferate so do the bees and wasps. Dragonfly and damselfly season is in high gear supplying a source of food for many birds. This week the Kingbird nestlings flexed their wings, shook
This Week At Nixon Park 2025
It was a week for Kingbirds (more about Tyrant Flycatchers). Kingbirds aggressively defend their territories, even against the largest bird they are likely to run across at the park, the Great Blue Heron. I saw the chase pictured above a couple of times this week. I've been watching
Dragonflies
The other post in this series covers the Dragonfly Life Cycle These are the twelve species of dragonfly you are most likely to see at the park. I've arranged them into their various families and groups and included some basic points to identify them. male dragonflies are much
This Week At Nixon Park 2025
This week I visited the meadow area that has grown to cover the old landfill site. Barn Swallows and Tree Swallows were hawking for insects, and there's a very active and vocal nesting community of Red-winged Blackbirds who, having spotted me at some distance, were not interested in
This is the first of several posts about Odonata; an order of predatory flying insects that includes dragonflies (Anisoptera) and damselflies (Zygoptera). This is a generalized life cycle that points out stages you may observe at the park. You can see up to a dozen species of dragonflies along the
This Week At Nixon Park 2025
A hot week. Enough said about that. I like to walk slowly through the beech grove when the weather is hot (truth be told I walk slowly everywhere when the weather is hot). The canopy of trees shades the trail almost completely, and the undergrowth is lush, cool and green.
Birds
Tree Swallows, Northern Rough-winged Swallows and Barn Swallows frequent the ponds and meadows of the park. Stand quietly and watch as they speed by, often just a few feet away, darting and weaving through the air so effortlessly you'd swear they're doing it just for fun.
This Week At Nixon Park 2025
Another week of rain and unseasonably cool temperatures topped off by a strong storm with around an inch and a quarter of rain and 50 MPH wind gusts. When they swept through the park those winds felled a few trees and many branches.
This Week At Nixon Park 2025
A warmer week than last. As the high temperatures reach the eighties for a couple of days in a row dragonfly nymphs are finally beginning to emerge after a cold, wet spring.
The History of Anson B. Nixon Park
This is a chapter in an occasional series about the history of Anson B. Nixon Park. Previous entries At the Foot of the Mountains Landfill To Park Early Kennett Square villagers got their water from wells, cisterns, springs, or the Red Clay Creek. Individual households or groups of households were
This Week At Nixon Park 2025
Sadly it appears that a predator of some description has snatched the eggs out of the Green heron nest (last week's look at the nest and eggs). I checked on the nest a number of times this week and did not see the Heron sitting, nor the eggs.
This Week At Nixon Park 2025
After a long bleak winter of waiting, traversing vast migrations, and surviving daunting probabilities, the late May parade of life carries on despite unseasonable cold and wet. This week it's fledglings, nests full of eggs, the quiet work of incubation, feeding the nestlings, tiny turtles, fox kits, and