Roberts Bird Sanctuary
Roberts Bird Sanctuary is located on the north side of Lake Harriet in Minneapolis. There is a Visitor’s Shelter on the east end of the Sanctuary across the street from the Rose Garden. The address of the Visitors Shelter is 4125 Roseway Road, Minneapolis.
For information about 2012 garlic mustard pulls at the Sanctuary, click here.
Roberts Revitalization Project Priorities & Recommendations
Click on the link above to read the white paper submitted by the ACM to the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board (MPRB) regarding the long-term management of the Sanctuary. MPRB staff are working on the draft plan now. We hope our recommendations and priorities will be incorporated in it. The draft will be available for public comment in mid-to-late summer.
One owlet eating a crow
A family of Great Horned Owls is nesting in Roberts Bird Sanctuary. On May 15, Deb Chryssanthis took the two above photos of the owlets eating a crow given to them by their mother. If you go to see the owls, for their sake, please be quiet and keep your distance.
CAC voted on April 25 to remove the two sites next to the Sanctuary from consideration as potential dog park sites!
The CAC members said they heard the message loud and clear that people are opposed to putting a dog park next the Sanctuary and the Peace Garden. Thank you to everyone who called or wrote to the MPRB Commissioners, sent a comment to the CAC, signed a petition, or attended a meeting. This wouldn’t have happened without your acting on behalf of the Sanctuary.
Read Jim Williams’ blog (scroll down to the March 18 entry) here about putting a dog park next to Roberts Bird Sanctuary. Jim mentions Roberts hasn’t received the consideration and care it deserves. Help address this problem by volunteering for the Roberts Revitalization Project.
Read the study “Four-legged friend or foe? Dog walking displaces native birds in natural areas” published in 2007 in Biology Letters.
dog-walking_impacts_on_wildlife
Establishing and maintaining buffer zones around bird sanctuaries and wildlife refuges is an example of applying Best Management Practices (BMPs) to the management of these sites. Below are some documents that discuss the purpose and importance of buffer zones.
UN Environment Programme statement on buffer zones
Audubon Society of Portland – buffer zones
University of Kentucky Extension Service Guide to Urban Habitat Conservation Planning
Read the Feb. 4 MPRB announcement about the formation of a CAC to consider the three sites here.
The entries below address some of the time and effort that has already been put into the Roberts Revitalization Project.
Click on the link below to read the white paper we submitted to the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board in November, 2010 with the hope that the recommendations would be incorporated into the draft management plan for Roberts Bird Sanctuary. The draft will be available for public comment in late spring. We hope chapter members and other birders will make use of the white paper when they comment on the draft. Check back for updates on the draft and comment period.
Roberts Revitalization Project Priorities & Recommendations in PDF format
Roberts Revitalization Project brochure
Update on November 16, 2010 meeting about the Roberts Revitalization Project
On November 16, 2010 we met with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB), and representatives from the Environment Committee of the Linden Hills Neighborhood Council (LHiNC) and the Parks, Environment and Schools Committee of the East Harriet Farmstead Neighborhood Association (EHFNA) to talk about the Roberts Revitalization Project (RRP). The meeting went well.
Ahead of the November 16 meeting, we gave the MPRB a white paper with our priorities and recommendations regarding the long-term management of Roberts Bird Sanctuary (RSB). We identified three important areas to revitalizing the Sanctuary: conservation, recreation, and education and prioritized our recommended actions for each area. The white paper was well received.
At present, the MPRB is working on drafting the long-term management plan. There will be a public comment period on the draft sometime next spring. The final version will be presented to the MPRB Board of Commissioners sometime next fall.
ACM and its partners, LHiNC and EHFNA, will continue with volunteer activities while the MPRB drafts the management plan. These activities will include bird walks, a tree inventory, invasive species removal events, plantings, educational activities and other activities to be defined in an expanded version of the ACM’s Adopt-a-Park agreement. Educational activities in the near future will include updating and expanding the information in the existing display at the Visitors Shelter and creating materials such as maps and bird lists for use by visitors to the Sanctuary.
If you’d like to help with any of these activities, contact me at heal0055@umn.edu
Press release for the project: Roberts Bird Sanctuary Revitalization Project
Located in Lyndale Park in southwest Minneapolis, the Thomas Sadler Roberts Bird Sanctuary includes about 13 acres of woodland and wetland north of Lake Harriet and south of Lakewood Cemetery. As part of the Minneapolis Chain of Lakes Important Bird Area, this sanctuary is recognized as a globally important habitat for the conservation of bird populations. The Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board (MPRB), Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis (ACM), East Harriet-Farmstead Neighborhood Association (EHFNA) and Linden Hills Neighborhood Council (LHiNC) have formed a partnership to create a long-term management plan that will revitalize this area and preserve this legacy.
The first step in the process of creating a long-term management plan for Roberts Bird Sanctuary will be to involve the community in identifying opportunities and priorities for revitalizing the area.
Three community meetings will be held to gather public input:
Monday, August 9, 2010 from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Lyndale-Farmstead Community Center
3900 Bryant Ave S Minneapolis
Thursday, August 19, 2010 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Linden Hills Community Center
3100 43rd Street W Minneapolis
Tuesday, September 7, 2010, 7:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Mayflower Congregational Church
106 E Diamond Lake Road Minneapolis
(Note: this meeting is the regularly scheduled ACM program meeting; public input will be from 7 – 8 pm followed by a program on Roberts from 8 – 9 pm; everyone is welcome to attend the whole meeting.)
Read the earlier posts for some background on our involvement with Roberts.
Posted on July 1, 2010
Sometime in late September or early October, we’ll begin working with the MPRB volunteer coordinator to set up the Legacy Stewards program at Roberts. This program will allow registered, trained volunteers to work independently at Roberts on their own adopted section. Check out the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden website to learn about its Legacy Stewards program; our program will be modeled after this one.
http://eloisebutlergarden.com/
| Posted on June 10, 2010 |
As you may know, this past spring the Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis (ACM) adopted Roberts through the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board’s (MPRB) Adopt-a-Park program. We adopted Roberts because we want to work with the MPRB to enhance the environment at the sanctuary. While the adoption program is limited in scope, we hoped that by completing our adoption tasks successfully, we could show the MPRB we are commited to Roberts. With this commitment established, we wanted to start working with the MPRB on a project that will have a huge beneficial impact on Roberts: the development and implementation of a management plan. We’re pleased to report the management plan process has begun.
We recently met with MPRB staff to review the adoption agreement and to discuss the next steps. We agreed on two major steps. First, we are going to work with the MPRB’s volunteer coordinator to set up a program to allow registered, trained volunteers to work independently on their own adopted section of Roberts. The program will be modeled after the Legacy Stewards program at the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden in Theodore Wirth Park. We need to meet with the coordinator to work out the details but we hope to provide an update soon.
The second major step is we are going to set up a series of meetings to gather input from the birding community and the public at large about their vision and goals for Roberts. Gathering this input is the first step in a long series of steps towards a management plan. Some of the other steps involve technical and funding considerations.
Keeping in mind Roberts is a bird sanctuary and, first and foremost, we want to do right by the birds and other wildlife in the sanctuary, please start thinking about what you would like to see at Roberts. Check back for more information about when and where the meetings will be held. Then attend a meeting and let us know what you think.
THE GOOD…
Early meadow-rue and Jack-in-the-pulpit are two of the desirable native plants found in Roberts.
Jack-in-the-pulpit; photo by Jenn Gillen
Early meadow-rue; photo by Jenn Gillen
- Glossy buckthorn; photo by Forestthreats.org
Common buckthorn; photo by NPS
- Garlic mustard; photoby John Randall
THE BAD… Common buckthorn, Glossy buckthorn, and Garlic mustard are some of the invasive plants found at Roberts.