When people think “Edina,” the first images that probably come to mind are plush suburban houses, fine dining options, and some of the Twin Cities best and most exclusive shops. But in certain areas of Edina lie some of the city’s true hidden gems, swaths of habitat that serve as home for all kinds of wildlife. Edina's own Martin Freeman is one of the many who have taken an interest in these spaces, which for him, has become a hobby and a passion.
“Wildlife is closely tied to habitat, and especially corridors along which different wildlife populations can travel and mix,” Freeman explains. “Edina has some special places that serve that purpose.”
Among them are Minnehaha Creek and Pamela Park, which harbor prime pockets of forest and wetland. According to Freeman, the birds and animals are far more concerned with these habitats than the tracts of houses that surround them.
“The wildlife corridors and efforts to maintain them are probably why Edina has surprisingly so much wildlife for a first tier suburb right next to Minneapolis,” says Freeman.
Growing up on 10 acres of woodland in New York state, surrounded by a small lake and another 500 acres of county-owned forest, Freeman has been intrigued by wildlife and interested in conservation efforts since he was a young boy. He still holds vivid memories of a great blue heron and an osprey that lived nearby—and the utter disappointment in one day finding the heron shot dead by the lake.
“How far we've come as a conservation nation; no one would shoot at a heron or hawk now,” Freeman says. “Even with all that wild land, I saw less variety of birds and animals in a month where I grew up, than I now see on a good day in Edina. It shows how wildlife-friendly and conscious Minnesotans are, and what a terrifically diverse habitat we have.”
In 1989, after moving to Minnesota, Freeman became involved with the Raptor Center in St. Paul. As a gastroenterologist, he volunteered his services to endoscope birds as needed. Soon, he performed an endoscope on a bald eagle with a broken wing, and shortly thereafter, treated a series of endangered trumpeter swans that suffered from lead poisoning after ingesting lead pellets from lake bottoms (exposed, Freeman explains, by drought-lowered lake levels that revealed sediment with now-banned lead shot).
“Even a single lead shot in the gizzard of a swan would lead to fatal poisoning,” says Freeman. “Together with the veterinarians, we adapted techniques from human gastroenterology to wash out the gizzards of the [birds], and I ended up performing endoscopy on ten enormous trumpeter swans.” The extremely successful (and complicated) operations were closely covered by local and national news media, including the CBS evening news, CNN, and the Today Show. Says Freeman, “If everyone has their 15 minutes of fame, that was mine!”
Freeman, his wife Dona and two children, have resided on Woodcrest Drive since 1994, and his backyard (which borders Pamela Park and is nearby Minnehaha Creek) has proved to be a panorama of local wildlife—especially after parts of Pamela Park were turned into a water quality improvement project wetland.
“About 12 years ago, after a bad flood with sewers backing up into basements and concerns about runoff, the city of Edina and the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District implemented a major plan to turn the park into a series of wetlands,” Freeman explains. “It was an inspired piece of planning.”
The project improved water quality, restored natural wetlands and brought back some native plant species…but it also meant that creatures started pouring into the area. Within the first year, wood ducks, mallards and herons started showing up, then red-winged blackbirds came as the cattails grew, and with the natural grasses came the hawks. And even the occasional bald eagle. And mink, beavers, deer, rabbits, squirrels, snapping turtles, songbirds, geese. And the list goes on.
“We now had a grandstand from our rear deck,” Freeman says. “It was as if they installed our own personal wildlife refuge.”
It was that backyard wildlife inspired Freeman to get into photography on a more regular basis. “That, and the need for a diversion from work,” explains Freeman, a top Twin Cities M.D. whose titles are nearly too numerous to name here, and who spends time doing clinical work and acting as the director of the gastroenterology division at the University of Minnesota.
The other turning point for Freeman was the purchase of a high quality Canon digital SLR camera and paparazzi-style lens from National Camera and Video, that allowed him to get close-up shots with great details, like he was never able to before. “It’s now my main hobby,” he says.
While his backyard is an ideal habitat for wildlife, Freeman spots conservation concerns within the community. Plans for a nature path around Pamela Park, for instance, has Freeman hopeful that planners will leave enough room for undisturbed habitat (while still allowing people to enjoy the park).
Then there's the new bridge over Minnehaha Creek at 56th Street. The old one featured beams on the underside that were perfect for pairs of barn swallows to nest, but the new one has a flat underside—and the birds haven’t returned since. Freeman hopes some type of structure could be installed to allow the swallows to nest again.
“Critical habitat for animals requires lack of intrusion by people,” says Freeman. Which is why he watches from afar. “I come home and stare out the back window or from our back deck for up to an hour at a time, just waiting to see what appears.”
