Savor our rich outdoors and nature safely while you shelter

We encourage those who can to safely enjoy the outdoors while we shelter from Coronavirus. Staying active can help boost the immune system and there is growing evidence that spending time in nature can reduce stress and improve health (one of many roundups here). 

For ideas, see Friends of Five Creeks’ handouts on:

Observing safe physical distance — six feet from anyone you don’t live with — you can take healthy walks and bike rides, savoring fresh, clean air, sparkling water, and spring greenery, flowers, and birds. Children can run, climb trees, and discover bugs. People in the same household can toss or kick a ball or disc, or fly a kite. Silence and solitude have their joys, too.  In addition to keeping safe physical distances:

  • Check before you go about closures or restrictions, especially in heavily used, well known areas. Expect playing fields, ball courts, playgrounds, and dog parks tp be c;psed. East Bay Regional Parks have closed some parks, restricted parking in others, and required that all dogs be on leash. Expect visitor centers, restrooms, picnic areas, campgrounds, and water fountains to be closed.
  • Plan ahead: Bring your own reusable water bottle, any needed snacks, face covering if appropriate (not required and possibly harmful during heavy exercise such as running), and hand sanitizer (plus optional gloves if you will need to touch objects such as handrails). 
  • Pack out your trash and clean up after your pet. Trash collection may be limited.
  • Stay at home if you or anyone in your household is sick.

More ideas for savoring nature safely — we welcome yours at f5creeks@gmail.com:

  • iNaturalist, helps you identify almost any plant or animal while you contribute to citizen science. To identify birds by sight or song, and to contribute to citizen science at the same time – including in your own back yard, check out eBird and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s other great tips and resources.  
  • Nature journaling and drawing are ways to closely observe and experience nature — fabulous introductions, instructions, and curricula on John Muir Laws’ web site. Going to a beach? Environmental artist Zach Pine has a video and project for making sand globes — seemingly magic balls of sand you can toss around. Outside of parks, there are places where you can forage — and help biodiversity by eating the weeds! A few ideas are here.    
  • With gloves, bags, and a litter stick (available at hardware stores), as well as common-sense cautions, you can pick up litter. Many kids love this!
  • Other adventures range from photography to learning the night sky (many cell phone apps available). If you like challenges, explore orienteering, Geocaching, or letterboxing.
  • For children, even a small green area can be a wonderland, and all of us can experience joy and awe from planting or tending even a small garden, watching birds at a feeder, or listening to bird calls from street trees.
  • Visit nature virtually with videos, podcasts, and good old-fashioned books. 

Three BPFP member projects receive UCB Chancellor’s grants

Three Berkeley Partners for Parks partner groups will be taking big steps forward thanks to funding from the UC Berkeley’s Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund. The fund provides about $250,000 a year in grants to nonprofits that partner with UC Berkeley faculty, staff, or student groups on projects in Berkeley.

In the most recent round, Friends of Ohlone Park (FOOP) received $5000 to work with the UC Botanical Garden to enhance the Ohlone Journey mural that covers BART’s vent building in Ohlone Park, adding a border of native plants, rocks, and art.

Ohlone Park Mural
Ohlone Park mural

Schoolhouse Creek Common received $5000 to work with the Berkeley Project’s student volunteers to repair and enhance the community-built and -maintained park, play area, and native plant garden at Curtis and Virginia, next to the Berkeley Adult School.

The Turtle Island Fountain Project received $5000 to work with the College of Environmental Design and Professor Walter Hood to revitalize the Civic Center Park fountain with a long-envisioned monument to Berkeley’s original indigenous communities.

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Videos on threatened local wildlife feature BPFP projects

New short videos on local wildlife threatened by climate change feature two Berkeley Partners for Parks volunteer projects. The five “Edge of Extinction” documentaries were created for local online newspaper Berkeleyside by Max Brimelow, video journalist currently studying at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

Meet Marty Nicolaus of Chavez Park Conservancy in “Owl Good Things Must Come to An End” here. Martin’s longer, 24-minute documentary on the Cesar Chavez owls is here.

Trout in Doubt,” on threats to Central Coast steelhead, features Susan Schwartz, longtime head of Friends of Five Creeks, talking about the group’s work before and after the April 3 fish kill that seems to have wiped out these fish in Codornices Creek, our area’s only trout stream. The other videos cover Western pond turtles, bees, and salt marsh harvest mice. All give tips on how you can help, too. Highly recommended!

Celebrate Ohlone Park’s 50th Anniversary June 1

Saturday, June 1, 11 AM – 4 PM, celebrate the 50th anniversary of Berkeley’s Ohlone Park, the green swath north of Hearst Avenue from Milvia to Sacramento, created by protest where homes were torn down above BART’s then-new tunnel. Along with festivities, two themes will entwine:
• Members of the local Muwekma Ohlone Tribe and prominent California Indian artists and craftspeople will celebrate their thousands of years of heritage.
• Longtime residents and citizen activists will share gritty tales of protest and hands-on creativity, along with photos, news stories about “Insurrection City,” and never-before-seen park designs that document citizen efforts that kept the park as open space.

At 11 AM near Hearst just west of Milvia, members of the Muwekma Ohlone tribe and mural artist Jean LaMarr will rededicate the four-sided mural depicting Ohlone history and community life. Later this year, funding from a UC Chancellor’s grant and Berkeley’s Civic Arts Commission will help realize LaMarr’s vision of a native-plant garden around the mural, with a grinding-rock sculpture and benches representing swimming salmon
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General festivities begin at noon:
• At Grant and McGee, prominent California Indian artists and craftspeople will demonstrate traditional arts and music and teach simple games. Park-history displays will be at Grant.
• Between California and Sacramento, a Kids Fun Fest will offer games, clowning, and dance and martial arts classes.
• The community garden will welcome visitors, and from 2-3 PM the Ohlone Dog Park Association will offer a dog training workshop at the dog park.
• A crop swap, acoustic music jam, and trucks selling tacos and soft-serve ice cream round out the fun.

Get there easily with a bike valet lot on California near Delaware or short walks from North Berkeley BART or AC Transit lines 12, 88, 79, 52, and 51B.

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED!
Friends of Ohlone Park has launched a GoFundMe Campaign to help defray expenses. Donations are tax deductible via the group’s nonprofit fiscal sponsor, Berkeley Partners for Parks. Go to //www.gofundme.com/ohlone-park-50th-anniversary-celebration?utm_medium=email&utm_source=product&utm_campaign=p_email%2B4803-donation-alert-v5.

Volunteers are needed for one-hour slots: Sign Up at //www.signupgenius.com/go/8050f4cacaa2da46-50th.

If you have folding tables, large heavy duty carts, or can offer housing to one of the many visiting Native California artists who are coming from various parts of California, please email the Friends of Ohlone Park at berkeleyfoop@gmail.com.

Also much appreciated: Deliveries of coffee and breakfast items to the McGee/ Grant block on the morning of June 1st, for set up crews, and cleanup help at the end of the day.

Grant will help edge Ohlone mural with native plants


A $5000 grant to Friends of Ohlone Park (FOOP) from the University of California Chancellor’s Community Parknership Fund will honor the Ohlone people for whom the park is named, by adding a border of native plants around the four-sided mural at Hearst and Milvia.

The border will also help complete the vision of California Indian artist Jean La Marr, who painted the mural on a concrete structure that ventilates the BART tracks that run under the park.

Under the grant, FOOP will partner with UC’s Botanical Garden to choose plants; the garden will also donate some plants. The university’s Phoebe Hearst Anthropology Museum also will create a webpage about the Ohlone for park visitors to access via an informational sign with its link posted near the mural.

Funds are still being sought to add other elements, including rocksrepresenting local Native American petroglyphs and the holes worn by women pounding acorns and other seeds.