It was a lovely walk in the park for Delran residents Sharon Murray and her grandchildren on Wednesday, July 8, as they were delighted to see monarch butterflies flitter through the summer air after feeding on milkweed patches while hiking the mile-long trail at Rainbow Meadow Park.
“I like nature. I like seeing butterflies and walking down by the creek,” said Alana Richards, 11, who will be a sixth grader at Delran Middle School this September. This past spring, she helped her parents, Justin and Lindsay Richards, plant blueberries and strawberries in their yard.
“Hiking on trails is peaceful. I like looking at the butterflies and animals,” said Gabby Richards, 14, who will be a freshman at Delran High School. She also enjoys going to the nearby Boundary Creek Natural Resource Area. “I like the water and walking on the wooden planks going out into the creek.”
“I like being outside,” said Aria Richards, 4, who gasped in glee watching the butterflies. She also enjoys going to the Rancocas Nature Center once a week where she gets to put her boots on and wade in the creek.
Murray, an avid hiker, looks forward to her outings with the three sisters. “I want them to have a place to go that is peaceful and recognize nature as a place to disconnect and be themselves. I like the butterflies and the plants at this park. It’s a really big bird watching area and it’s a good trail for dogs that leads to a scenic view of the Rancocas Creek.”
Trees along the creek give visitors sheltered views of northern pintails, mergansers, goldeneyes, and double-crested cormorants during the winter. Besides the migrating monarch butterflies in the summer, the park is also home to native fritillary, swallowtails and sulphur butterflies.
Located at 151-171 Creek Road, next to the Farmers Against Hunger Center that provides free food to families in need, the 127-acre Rainbow Meadow Park goes all the way back to the creek and is a beautiful open space with native plants that attract pollinators.
For more than 100 years the Anderson family had owned and operated a peach farm on the property before selling it to the Burlington County Board of Commissioners in 2001 to be preserved as a public green.
In the summer of 2022, the Commissioners approved renaming Laurel Run Park to Rainbow Meadow Park. The former farm roads now make up a one-mile trail that guides visitors along the farmfield edges to the Rancocas Creek, where they can fish or just relax and take in beautiful views of the water.
During a presentation last year at the park’s pavilion Jennifer Bulava, the lead park naturalist for Burlington County, encouraged residents to grow gardens friendly to bees and insects.
“Without pollination, plants can’t reproduce,” Bulava said. “We would be completely lost and the global food supply would be degraded. Pollinators are keystone species that support the rest of the ecosystem.
“We can’t ignore pollinators like bees, butterflies and insects, because they are doing such an important job. We are celebrating the little things that run the world,” she said, adding that the meadow at the park is full of native plants that attract these pollinators, including a huge area full of lavender and native flowers and grasses.
Earlier this year the commissioners voted to use some funding from the federal American Rescue Plan Act to cover the cost of extending public sewerage to the park property and build a new restroom.
Other future planned improvements include an expanded parking lot, construction of new accessible trails and creek-side amenities, including two fishing docks, an accessible kayak launch and three overlook decks.
Also, the commissioners are looking to create a family games area with numerous new features, including chess and checkers tables, table tennis, a hammock lounge area, a rain garden, a barbecue area with grills and picnic tables.
For now Rainbow Meadow Park is a great place to just get outside, walk on the trail down to the creek, and enjoy the wonder of nature – just like Murray and her grandchildren did last week before going to get some ice cream on a hot, summer day.
Enjoying a pleasant hike in Rainbow Meadow Park along Creek Road in Delran on a hot, sunny Wednesday afternoon July 8 are Sharon Murray (left to right) and her grandchildren, Gabby, Aria and Alana Richards.
