Sylvan Heights: A Groundbreaking Experience

Last week, we traveled to Sylvan Heights Waterfowl Park to find a few wood ducks. We first visited this overlooked jewel last year after reading about it in Wildlife in North Carolina magazine. That trip was both pleasant and informative, and because of it, we expected to spent our day strolling around the shady forest-park, looking at ducks that couldn't fly away when we tried to photograph them. We got that and more.

To our surprise, one of the employees recognized us from our previous visit. I remembered her, too, because she spent time with several visitors, providing excellent information on many of the species living at Sylvan Heights, as well as on the park itself. After chatting for a few minutes, she invited us to a groundbreaking that would take place on the premises that afternoon.

As we soon discovered, the groundbreaking was for a ground breaking expansion. Sylvan Heights is building an accessible treehouse so that those with physical impairments may enjoy the park and its residents. Funded in part by several organizations both mentioned and represented at the event, the octagon-shaped "Bird's Nest" will overlook three levels of wetlands to be restored in the woods behind existing exhibits.

Wetlands restoration? Handicap-accessible facilities? Those in addition to working to save waterfowl? We were honored to witness the event:

The grand opening should be held this summer. We hope to be there for it.

Sylvan Heights is located in Scotland Neck, NC, approximately eighteen miles from historic Halifax. To keep up-to-date on the opening and other events at Sylvan Heights, visit their new blog at http://sylvanheightsblog.blogspot.com/

A delightful visit. But we didn't expect anything less.

If you missed the link to our first post, including photos, on Sylvan Heights, click here.