MCA Volunteers in Action

Celebrating MCA volunteers because our work would not be complete without them!

Trash-A-Thon: Getting the Cleanups Rollin

2022 Trash-a-Thon has commenced! Two intrepid Trash Team members went out to "scout".....except they forgot their paddles....and of course they went any way, each using 1/2 of a kayak paddle.

While it was scheduled to be a quick planning trip to look for best places to cleanup, the team couldn't help picking up a few bits, pieces, and mounds of trash along the way including a shopping cart, 6 tires, and a BOWLING BALL! In addition, the "quick" trip didn't turn out to be very quick (remember they only had 1/2 paddle each) and by the time they reached the take out, it was 9 pm!

Bad news, it is hard to unload heavy wet trash in the dark. Good news, when you paddle the creek in the dark, the moon light is gorgeous and the chances of seeing a great horned owl skyrockets!

Teams went back on Saturday morning to continue their adventures, bust out some log jams, and clean up more sections of Mill Creek. You can BE A PART OF THIS FUN(draiser) too! JOIN THE MCA Trash-a-Thon and help us pick up trash and bring in cash. All proceeds benefit our award winning education, restoration and recreation programs. Find out more at: www.themillcreekalliance.org/tat

Thanks to the Trash Teams for "getting things rolling" !

Citizen Scientist Make the News!

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/57b2ee78221341a18b0f7ebe8017340d

Wildlife, at the Fringe

(VDV/Shutterstock.com)

A heron rookery, aflutter with Great Blue Herons, has been spotted along the Mill Creek near IKEA West Chester in Butler County, OH!

Graham Mitchell, 2021

Warren High, 2020

What is a rookery, you say? It is a location where more than a pair of birds nest in a group. The number of nests, birds, and bird species can vary. The rookery is easily observed looking SW from the back of the IKEA building near the edge of the parking lot, across the retention pond to the opposite side.

Butler County, Ohio Auditor, 2021

Graham Mitchell, 2021

This is an encouraging development at the Mill Creek. The retention basin (highlighted by the green line in the map) sits in the Upper Mill Creek Watershed, where there has been a large, human-population increase over the past four decades. Land uses surrounding the basin are, primarily, commercial and light industrial. At the SW border of the pond, an edge of towering trees line the banks, offsetting a lack of tall canopy heights and foliage. The duration of this intact section of habitat is, most likely, a contributing factor to encouraging a thriving ecosystem of wildlife.

Protecting the herons. Birders have documented (using iNaturalist app) the presence of the Great Blue Heron at this location since 2017. There are 64 species of heron in the family Ardeidae. They prefer to live near water and feed on edges of marshes, lakes, and ponds. The environment of the rookery at the IKEA retention pond includes a newly planted tree buffer behind the building, the strand of tall trees on the banks of the Mill Creek, an isolated location off the beaten path, and plenty of fish; perfect for this siege of birds.

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Want to take ACTION in wildlife conservation in the Mill Creek Watershed?

Join us for 2021 Bioblitz

Cincinnati Parks & Great Parks created a local Cincinnati/Hamilton County team for City Nature Challenge 2021, a collaborative competition between cities across the world. There is nature all around us, even in our cities! Knowing what species are in our city and where they are helps us study and protect them, but the ONLY way to do that is by all of us – scientists, land managers, and the community – working together to find and document the nature in our area. By participating in the City Nature Challenge, from April 30 through May 3, not only do you learn more about your local nature, but you can also make your city a better place – for you and other species!

The City Nature Challenge, a bioblitz-style event, bouts cities against each other in healthy competition, to see who can:

●      make the most observations of nature

●      who can find the most species, and

●      who can engage the most people.

The event utilizes the free iNaturalist platform (web and app) to record environmental data. In addition to City Nature Challenge 2021, participants can log photos of plants and animals they see in the Mill Creek Watershed to iNaturalist, throughout 2021. The information collected will be helpful in community programming and education, controlling invasive species, and prioritizing natural areas in need of further preservation efforts.

Your participation could make a difference!

To Get Involved:

1. Download the iNaturalist app on your smartphone (or take pictures with your camera and upload them later to the iNaturalist website)

2. Go outside! (with your phone charged and your spirit ready)

3. Species documented in the Mill Creek Watershed during the City Nature Challenge will automatically be added to the Cincinnati Hamilton County Project and the MCA 2021 Bioblitz. If you like, become a member of the two open projects in the iNaturalist app:

Project TRASH! Celebrate Earth Day!

Earth Day is this week! While we can’t be together, each of us can still celebrate from a distance! Earth Day is a special day designated to demonstrate your support for the environment. We hope you will enjoy this exercise we put together for you. Using the same methods that are being employed by scientists and the US EPA, you can experiment with trash!

See video and pictures to accompany this exercise HERE.

Committee of Vultures

Seen in Cincinnati!
A Committee of Vultures….TIRE VULTURES!

About two weeks ago, our partners at Keep Cincinnati Beautiful offered to provide a Rumpke dumpster for tire removal if we needed it.  MCA took this question to our star volunteers at the Mill Creek Yacht Club (MCYC) where the answer was an emphatic “YES PLEASE”.  Less than 14 days later we find ourselves with all this:

MCYC volunteers started gathering tires from the lower Mill Creek the week of September 23rd, in preparation for our Run the Riffles event at Salway Park.  As you many know, rainfall in Cincinnati has been minimal all summer, and the water in the Mill Creek has gotten fairly low.  In the eyes of the MCYC, this is the ideal time to remove tires from the creek because they are much easier to get out of the creek bed.  This opportunity allowed for a bit of healthy competition to see who could remove the most tires in an hour, in a day, in a week! 

At the end of the “competition” this vibrant group of volunteers has removed 258 tires (plus 4 bikes and a motorcycles) from the Mill Creek between Salway Park and Millcreek Road in less than two weeks.  So far, these volunteers have put in over 122 hours of time on this project, and they are not done yet.

UPDATE [October 10]

This mission has been accomplished! Tire Sweep 2019 wrapped up yesterday when crews in shifts worked to dump all the tires into the Rumpke donated dumpster! There is no job too big for these dedicated volunteers.

THANK YOU to this amazing “Committee of Vultures”

Bernie Moller

Charles Skidmore

Christopher Carr

Mike Reifenberger

Bruce Koehler

Greg Bechtel

Dr. Mike Miller

Brendon Leeker

Lelia D & Betsy J

Mike D & Paul G

Carson Skidmore

Henry Chapman

“The Committee” learned their craft from The Man, The Myth, The Legend, the Original “Tire Vulture” himself, Mike Reifenberger.

NOTE: A group of vultures is called a committee, venue or volt. In flight, a flock of vultures is a kettle, and when the birds are feeding together at a carcass, the group is called a wake.

This tire sweep was supported by:

The First Ever Mill Creek BioBlitz!

Thank you to everyone who made the first ever BioBlitz on the Mill Creek a great success! We cataloged over 100 different aquatic and terrestrial species, including macroinvertebrate indicators of good water quality like crayfish and caddisflies. This whole event would not have been possible without our amazing partners at Midwest Biodiversity Institute, Patagonia, Hamilton County Soil and Water Conservation District, Mill Creek Yacht Club, Benchmark Outdoor Outfitters, Buckeye United Fly Fishers, Nature Conservancy in Ohio, US Fish and Wildlife, Cincinnati Museum Center and many more! If you would like to see all the different species we found, please check out iNaturalist.org (under projects search for, "BioBlitz on the Mill Creek") as we used this awesome app (as well as pen and paper, those results will follow shortly) to log all of our findings! It was truly reaffirming to all the work we do to see the communities surrounding Mill Creek interacting with all the life blossoming on its banks! Thank you again!