What’s Your Favorite Habitat Feature in the Wissahickon?
For all of our regular park visitors, it’s no secret that Wissahickon Valley Park offers a wonderful habitat to a variety of plant and animal species. We decided to ask some of our friends what their favorite habitat features are in the Wissahickon. Here’s what they said!
Tony Croasdale, PPR Environmental Education Planner
To me, no other animal symbolizes the Wissahickon better than the wood duck. I have never seen more wood ducks in any one place at one time than you can see from Valley Green in spring. The ample tree cavities in the park’s large trees provide the perfect conditions for a large breeding population.
Christina Moresi, PPR Environmental Education Planner at Andorra Tree House, FOW Member
I love our sugar maple trees that produce a sweet winter sap that gives us at the Wissahickon Environmental Center the opportunity to bring groups and other guests out in the winter to learn the process of making maple syrup [and taking it] from tree to table.
Sarah Marley, FOW Development Director
One of my favorite plants is the poplar tree, because its leaves are so distinct and easy to identify and it produces beautiful yellow flowers in the spring.
David Bower, FOW Volunteer, former PPR Stewardship Coordinator
My favorite bird is the pileated woodpecker. I’ve seen them along the creek near the Blue Stone Bridge and in the woods along the Yellow Trail below Houston Meadow. They’re big and colorful, with a very distinctive call, and just uncommon enough that they’re always exciting to see.
Wendy Willard, FOW Trail Ambassador and Crew Leader
While my favorite tree has to be the oak (I even have a hound dog named Quercus), the view that sticks with me is from the top of the ridge near the Tree House, looking across the Wissahickon at those magnificent sycamores. Their white trunks and spreading branches really stand out from that perspective.