Photo: Pollinator Garden, Musa Murawih
Musa Murawih
Starting in 2020, I worked with volunteers to move some of the native plant bounty from my yard into Upton Hill Regional Park, in Arlington. What started as an isolated project has evolved into one element of a larger ASNV program, Stretch Our Parks. The program brings ASNV together with parks, partners, volunteers, and the communities surrounding the parks to increase valuable native habitat. But let’s back up and review how I got here.
My first memory of connecting with birds was when I was 6 years old. My brother and I were walking among sunt trees (Prickly Acacia, Vachellia nilotica) on the edge of the Diwaimi wadi in the desert of North Kordofan, Sudan. A male of what was likely a Nile Valley Sunbird was feeding on nectar of the abundant yellow flowers, jumping from branch to branch as it sang. It flashed its wings and long tail feathers showing the stunning yellow, green, blue, and other iridescent colors. I was immediately enchanted. When my dad came back from work, I told him I wanted a shirt as pretty as the sunbird!
Birds enchant us for many reasons. It is not just their central role in supporting life on this planet. They are the very embodiment of some of the ideals we cherish most: beauty and freedom.
The sunt trees in the valley were sort of our backyard. I say that only figuratively because our home was a wool tent, and we only stayed there for the summer season, before moving to higher grounds in anticipation of the rain. The birds, the animals, and my community all shared the trees. Our tent was pitched under a group of them for extra shade. Their gum was our candy. We used their fruits to heal ailments or tan animal skins. For us to survive, they needed to survive.
Many years and places have passed since that childhood memory. My home is no longer North Kordofan, but northern Virginia. My camel is a Subaru Forester. The wool tent is a home in suburbia. Yet the basics remain: regardless of where we reside and what passport we carry, we need to share this planet with other creatures, and trees and other plants are front and center in this resource-sharing equation.
The author planting his pollinator garden, Houda Karrar
That is why ASNV, on whose Board I sit, is currently embarking on an exciting endeavor that is close to my heart. The Stretch Our Parks collaborative project is intended to link some of the existing area parks with the neighborhoods and backyards around them. Audubon is working with management, stewards, and neighbors of those parks to improve habitat so that birds and wildlife can also find refuge in our neighborhoods. As an immigrant who came to America seeking refuge, I can certainly relate.
We can all help in this effort, and no help is too small. We can hang a bird feeder in our property or put a birdbath in the yard. We can stop using harmful pesticides on our lawns. We can remove invasives at our homes. We can choose to plant a native tree next time we want to plant one.
My pollinator garden, Musa Murawih
On my end, I removed a three-foot wide strip of lawn along the wall of my townhouse and replaced it with a native pollinator garden. The project was so successful that I did not know what to do with my excess flowers. Then, as I was teaming up with other volunteers to remove invasives at Upton Hill Regional Park, I had a small eureka moment: why don’t I transplant some of my flowers to Upton Hill? So I did. With the help of Upton Hill’s manager Evan McGurrin, Park Steward Jill Barker, my fellow ASNV Board member Joan Haffey, and a team of park volunteers, we cleared three small areas where I began to transplant flowers starting in the fall of 2020.
Cleared area for plantings at Upton Hill Regional Park, Musa Murawih
The beds are now in their third season. My goal is to make these pollinator gardens self-sustaining, and I am hopeful they will be in the next couple of seasons.
The Stretch Our Parks work shows how important it is to see habitat and wildlife as one thing. When I think back about that sunbird childhood memory today, I don’t only see the sunbirds; I also see the row of sunt trees, the habitat that fed and supported them.
The author with Showy Goldenrod in its second season, Jill Barker