Nature Done Wright

  Unless you look at a Celery Farm map, you'd never know that the Celery Farm Natural Area is actually two separate parcels — the 99 acres we know as the Celery Farm, and another eight acres off Boroline Road, known as Laino Woods.

   Marsh Warden Emeritus Stiles Thomas and I visited the site on Saturday to see if we could get any additional birds for the Stepping Up for Lorrimer relay.

   Although we didn't get any "new" birds, we did get a lot of species, including Am. Redstart, Yellow Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Redtail, nesting Tree Swallows and House Wren.

  We have the Tree Swallows thanks to Fred Weber, who put up four boxes in the meadow portion of Laino Woods.

  We have Laino Woods thanks to
the diligence of Stiles Thomas (pictured at left at Laino Woods).

   A planner for a Boroline Road developer said that no buffer was needed for a project, and when  teh question was raised by David Epstein, a good friend of the Fyke Nature Association, the planner reasserted that no buffer was needed — and even if one were, it should have been caught by the borough sooner and that it was too late to include one at this point.

   Stiles went to Borough Hall, looked through piles of paperwork on the project, and finally discovered a letter from that very same planner suggesting a 75-foot buffer for the site.

   The town insisted on the buffer, and the Laino Brothers donated the buffer zone to the Celery Farm.

   There is no access to site — no trails, etc. — so it is a basically untrammeled woods and meadows. Is there an Eagle Scout project here somewhere?