By Dan Tortorice
Friends of Lake View Hill Park
Our Wisconsin climate is all about the changing seasons. Sometimes they’re dramatic and sometimes traumatic. But surely the most anticipated change is from winter to spring, when the young animals emerge and millions of plants poke through the ground in our jewel of a county park right in the middle of Northside Madison.
Friends of Lake View Hill Park held our annual meeting Feb. 17 to look back on what we got done last year and look ahead to the warmer months of 2018. The meeting featured a fascinating presentation by Professor David Drake of UW’s Urban Canid Project. In describing how researchers track fox and coyotes around the city, Dr. Drake told us the study is showing how life in urban settings may actually be changing how these species interact. Typically, a coyote would kill any of the smaller fox trying to live in its territory, but we saw actual video of coyotes feeding on a cache of dead rabbits left outside a fox den on Madison’s west side while the mother fox and her kits were left untouched. The abundance of available food in urban settings may explain this apparent change in behavior.
Other highlights included an announcement by County Supervisor Michele Ritt of a new program to encourage youth and others to become involved with our parks. Please see her report in this issue of Northside News.
We also got to see some rare photos of Lake View Sanatorium from about 1950 with a view of Sputum Pond shining at the bottom of the big hill. You can view these photos on our website, lakeviewhill.org.
In 2018 we plan to stay active in our efforts to preserve and restore the natural systems in the park while celebrating, interpreting and even excavating the heritage of Lake View Sanatorium.
We will continue to eradicate invasive plant species while managing our woods and meadows to increase populations of bees, bats and butterflies. We will be working to improve the Havey Street entrance, plant shrubs in the Esch Triangle, develop new landscaping around the Dorm Veranda and establish an herb garden in the cement pond above the parking lot.
On the cultural side, we will be hosting a celebration along with Dane County to dedicate the scenic veranda and historic plaques on the site of the former dormitory. Watch your local news outlet for an announcement of this exciting event.
We are planning to work on interpretive signs for both cultural and natural park features. We want to continue research on the barn foundation and to uncover the edge of Sputum Pond now that the city has finished placing water pipes down the hill.
Our upcoming events include garlic mustard removal and trash pick up April 21 from 10 am‒12 pm, and our annual bird count, May 12 at 6:30 am. Check the calendar in this issue for more information.
Let’s all enjoy spring in our scenic park.
Learn more about the park at lakeviewhill.org or find us on Facebook at lakeviewhill.