The Bird Park Before and After plus Vole Runways

BEFORE. The Bird Park in better days.

Having just returned to town, I decided to walk by the Bird Park to see how the wintering birds were doing. Strangely I found the chain and padlock hanging on the fence and the gate unsecured. I went inside.

A White-throated Sparrow at a loss as to what happened.

Usually these little guys flit away immediately when a human gets too close. This one just sat in the bare tree, even when I approached it and stood only a few feet away. I admit I was rather feeling at a loss myself. Below is what I found.

AFTER. The Bird Park today.

Above is what the White-throat and I were seeing. The Landlord next door seems to have started the construction thought to have begun many years ago. The Bird Park was even closed for an entire year, some years ago, in preparation for construction that never occurred until this last week And the promises, also made long ago to be extremely careful of all the vegetation and property unkept. His workman trampled the vegetation, broke branches off the Dogwood among other things and must have left the gate unsecured at the end of the work day Friday.

From John Blakeman, in regards to the discussion concerning the Red-tail on the sapling in the median and how voles venture out into the world.

He wrote-

This is a photo I took of a network of vole runways under some winter snow. For most of the year, these are under the grass.
This illustrates the way the voles move from nest to nest or grass clump to grass clump.