Visitors along Onondaga Lake’s West Shore Trail may have noticed a small pollinator garden with a wide variety of native plants. It’s a patch of sorts in a frayed habitat ecosystem for insects, birds, and other wildlife. Numerous organizations involved with the project celebrated with a ribbon cutting on Tuesday.
The garden is tucked behind the pump house along the trail between the boat launch and the bridge over the railroad. Executive Director of Audubon New York and Connecticut Michael Burger said studies show North America has lost three billion birds over the last 50 years mainly due to habitat loss.
“But it's habitats like this new pollinator garden at Onondaga Lake that can begin to reverse that trend," Burger said. "Each patch of habitat that we create in human dominated landscapes provides food, shelter, safe passage, and places for birds to raise their young.”
Jim Molloy is a senior scientist at Parsons, an international infrastructure firm that’s restoring the wetlands with an ideal ecosystem around the Lake.
“The native insects that will use this garden evolved alongside their predators, some of which are the dragonflies whose larvae feed the fish, who in part in addition to clean water, have brought the Eagles back to Onondaga Lake," Molloy said. "The milkweeds in this garden will serve as host plants to monarch butterflies, whose very existence is under threat due to habitat loss.”
Molly Jacobson is a pollinator ecologist at the SUNY ESF Restoration Science Center. She spotted a type of carpenter bee that took up residence in a lupin.
“There he is. We woke him up. This is one of our many solitary bees. Most bees are solitary bees,” Jacobson said. "This is one of a group of stem nesting bees. So they will hollow out these stems and the nest will basically be these different little chambers that go down the length of the stem, each one with a single egg inside.”
Jacobson said bees and other insects go from plant to plant in the small garden, transferring pollen.
Signs identify each plant in case passersby want to create their own habitat at home. Several groups were involved in creating the garden, including the Onondaga Lake Conservation Corps, Onondaga County Parks, and National Grid.
