Dr. Kim de Mutsert, Assistant Professor, George Mason University (GMU), gave a presentation to the Friends of Dyke Marsh, the Potomac Riverkeeper and the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust on November 15, 2017, examining the health of Hunting Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River just north of Dyke Marsh. This stream receives treated wastewater from the Alexandria Renew Enterprises wastewater treatment plant and untreated stormwater runoff. Since 2013, Alexandria Renew has funded GMU’s Potomac Environmental Research and Education Center to monitor water quality and the biological communities of Hunting Creek.
Three Mount Vernon High School teachers visited Dyke Marsh on November 19, 2017, doing “advance work” to prepare to bring MVHS environmental science and biology students to Dyke Marsh soon. Linda Townley, Victoria Correa and Amy Niss explored the flora, fauna and habitats of the preserve with NPS ranger Alex Parody, FODMers Ed Eder, Ned Stone and Glenda Booth, and discussed plans for students to visit and learn.
Fifteen enthusiastic volunteers helped rescue trees from invasive plants on a drizzly Sunday morning, November 5, 2017, working in the marsh along the bicycle path across from Tulane Drive. They tackled English ivy, porcelainberry, clematis/Virgin’s bower, honeysuckle and bittersweet, most of which can threaten the survival of many trees and shrubs. The trees and shrubs targeted included oaks, hollies, sassafrases, hornbeams, blackhaws, viburnums, spicebushes and strawberry bushes.
In the spring, summer and fall of 2017, a team of volunteers conducted regular surveys of Lepidoptera (butterflies, moths and skippers) and Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) in the Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve. Here are a few examples of their sightings:
Since 2015, working with the National Park Service, FODM has been trying to save some of the pumpkin ash trees (Fraxinus profunda) of the marsh that are being attacked by the invasive, lethal insect, the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) (See our longer article in “Marsh Life”).
Several people observed brown-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia triloba) this summer, 2017, along the Haul Road. It appears to be a new species of Rudbeckia for Dyke Marsh and this is the first photographic record of the species on George Washington Memorial Parkway (GWMP) properties. The plant was last observed in GWMP in Great Falls Park in 1919.
