HomeMy WebLinkAboutMCFARLAND - BRISON PARK SUPPORT LETTERSeptember 20, 2024
Dear members of the Texas Recreation and Parks Society,
My name is Tiffany McFarland, and I live in the Southside Historic Neighborhood in College Station, Texas. Professionally, I am a wildlife biologist with 15 years of experience working
for Agrilife Research. Personally, I am a nature nerd. I’m a birder and amateur naturalist, happily trying to identify every organism I come across. My family and I moved back to this
area four years ago, and I have spent many hours at Brison Park just sitting and watching, becoming giddy over the incredible diversity of birds, dragonflies, butterflies, and tiny
plants waiting to be discovered if you just take a moment to sit and really look. Having the park so near our home was such a huge draw to living here; on walks, Brison is always the
destination. A single sidewalk crossing the park will first lead you underneath the huge, sprawling branches of one of the most majestic post oaks in the county. My daughter, age nine,
cannot walk past the tree without sitting on or hanging her body over one of the sagging limbs that droop towards the ground. We’ll stop at and sit on the bench there, just to stare
up into the canopy and look for birds hopping around or squirrels jumping through the limbs. Next on the path is Billy Goat’s Bridge, which crosses over Bee Creek, very near the headwaters
of what eventually becomes a huge drainage as you follow it south through town. We rarely go over the bridge without first going under it to peer into the little stream; we’ll look
at the topminnows or search for tadpoles or insect larvae. My daughter is always happy to play under there while I sit nearby on the grass. And further down the path is our neighborhood
native pollinator garden, an ongoing project which we’ve spent many afternoons working on with neighbors and volunteers alike over three years in an effort to convert what was once
a thicket of invasive species to a lovely spot to sit and watch the bees and butterflies on the native blooms. The park has very few paths leading through it, so it’s also typical to
tromp through the grass or poke around in the woods.
For me, the park is a quiet place to watch the ebb and flow of the seasons and goings on of the animals we share this city with. However, it is also a well-known birding hotspot, attracting
both locals and people from across the state and beyond. During spring migration, when millions of birds are making their way north into the U.S. and Canada from Central and South America,
Brison Park is consistently occupied by people with binoculars, looking for tiny, feathered beings flitting around way up in the trees or “skulking” in the brushy undergrowth. Migrating
birds will stay just a day or two, refueling before resuming their incredible journey north. The local Audubon Society holds their competitive Big Sit in the park, where we see how
many avian species we can count in a day, from dawn until dusk, from within a defined circle. Over the years, 193 species of birds have been documented in Brison. This huge diversity
is attributed to Bee Creek, which serves as a corridor through town, providing cover and water to not just birds but all our wild neighbors. We’ve spotted all sorts of animals cruising
the creek to get around, including gray foxes, coyotes, racoons, skunks, opossums, even river otters, and an axis deer!
Brison Park is an important part of our neighborhood as a meet-up place or a calm retreat, but its importance expands to all the wild things that live in or pass through our town, as
part of their network of highways. It deserves to be a Legacy Park for many reasons, including its importance to the natural world.
Sincerely,
Tiffany McFarland
800 Hawthorn St.
College Station, TX 77840