If you’re not familiar with Virginia’s system of Natural Area Preserves, this is a good opportunity to see one that’s close by and rarely open to the public. Crow’s Nest Natural Area Preserve in Stafford County will have a public field day Saturday, November 9, from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m.

The Crow’s Nest NAP from the air.

Participants will experience one of Virginia’s most significant natural areas through a guided hike and natural history interpretation. The field day is free to attend, but reservations are required. Participants should wear casual clothes and comfortable shoes and be prepared to walk up to four miles. The event will take place rain or shine. Reservations can be made by calling 804-786-7951. Registration is limited to 80 people.

Crow’s Nest became a natural area preserve in 2009. The property is a peninsula between Accokeek and Potomac creeks. At 2,872 acres, Crow’s Nest contains mature hardwood forest and some of the best examples of diverse, intact wetlands in the Potomac River drainage basin. The property supports habitat for a variety of species, including bald eagles, migratory birds, the federally listed short-nosed sturgeon and 22 plant species important to Virginia’s Coastal Plain. In addition to its ecological value, the property has played a significant role in Native American, Colonial and Civil War histories.

Wetlands in the Crow’s Nest.

Crow’s Nest is one of 61 natural area preserves managed by the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. Natural area preserves contain some of the best examples of natural communities and rare plant and animal habitats in Virginia and the world.

Greg Hawkins

It was just over a year ago that Greg Hawkins, never a smoker, found out he had lung cancer. This past summer he passed away. Hawkins was the former head of VCU’s Outdoor Adventure Program. He had just moved out to Boise, Idaho to take the same job at Boise State when he found out he had cancer. I featured Greg and the efforts by members of the local paddling community to raise money for his medical bills in a T-D column last December. Now those efforts have transitioned from raising money for Greg to raising money in his honor.

If you’ve spent much time in the James River Park System, you know there are precious few water fountains. So, money raised in Greg’s honor will go toward putting in a human/dog water fountain at the Reedy Creek entrance to the park.

“There’s not a whole lot of areas where there’s water. And it’s a place where a lot of people come in,” said Chris Hull, president of the James River Outdoor Coalition and friend of Hawkins’. “The easiest place to put it is going to be in the parking lot. You can pull off the main line next to the street.”

Hull said they’ve had the project blessed by JRPS manager Nathan Burrell. Now it’s just a matter of raising what he thinks will be about $10,000 needed to run a new water line and buy the fountain and a plaque. There’s a Razoo.com page where folks can donate to the effort, and on December 7th the second annual James River Run 5K will go off from the park headquarters area. All the money from that race will go toward the Hawkins Memorial Fountain.

The goal is to have the fountain installed by the end of the year.

“This really celebrates Greg Hawkins many contributions to the park,” Hull said. “He was always doing something in the park.”

If there’s one thing I learned at A Look into the Richmond Region’s Bike Future, a presentation and discussion held a couple of weeks ago at the Science Museum of Virginia, it’s that for Richmond to realize its potential as a bike-friendly city, especially ahead of the world cycling championships coming here in September of 2015, it’s that our leaders need to truly understand the value of becoming more bike friendly. That’s why it was good to see Councilman Parker Agelasto and Richmond’s Director of Public Works James Jackson there. It’s also why it was disappointing not to see any other council members or the mayor there.

This matters, as we learned from the video presentations given, because without that buy-in from the top, without those leaders pushing, efforts can be halting, opportunities missed. We saw examples in Indianapolis and Washington, D.C. where mayors have been out front and vocal in promoting greenways, bike lanes, bike-sharing programs and a host of other bike-friendly efforts.

I’d like to see Mayor Dwight Jones do the same here. I go back and forth between hope and skepticism, but today there are signs of hope. Randy Hallman has a front-page story in the T-D about the Richmond2015 contingent that recently returned from Florence, where the 2013 world cycling championships were being held.

Among the hopeful quotes from Jones:

“Certain things caught my attention. Florence was extremely clean. … We need to put that on our to-do list.”

“The collaboration with retail merchants and the business community was remarkable,” he said. “They showed tremendous support. There were cycling motifs and displays in windows in practically every shop. Some of the windows were extremely artistic. We have to get our art community involved.”

“We want to be proactive and do the best job we can,” he said. “This is an opportunity to show that we can do it, and just as we did with the Redskins training camp, we can do this.”

What the mayor and others need to know is that it’s not just about window dressing and preparing for the onslaught of tourists. It’s about doing the little things now that will pay dividends long after those tourists are gone. It’s about thinking about bikes and pedestrians in every road project going forward. It’s about investing, not lip service, in projects like adding bike racks or developing a bike share program.

It’ll be two years before the eyes of the world are on Richmond. But our leaders need to know that the eyes of Richmond are on them right now.