Projects at Morosini Reserve offer new chances to check out local wildlife in Murrysville

Zach Posner can remember watching deer browse the big apple tree his family used to have in their Claridge backyard.

“They’d always come up and eat apples,” said Posner, 15, of Penn Township. “We also live close to Bushy Run, and we can go over there and see a lot of wildlife.”

Posner is hoping to give others the opportunity to watch the local wildlife, having recently completed his Eagle Scout project, an observation deck that sits high atop a meadow on the Westmoreland Conservancy’s Morosini Reserve in Murrysville.

It is one of three similar projects that have been put in place over the past year at the reserve. Aidan Kelly, a member of Scout Troop 239 alongside Posner, created a wheelchair-accessible observation deck along the reserve’s universal pedestrian trail, and through grant funding the Conservancy has also erected a wildlife observation blind along the trail.

“We’ve been holding our meetings at the blind,” conservancy President Shelly Tichy said.

Conservancy Vice President Rob Malley said the blind does its job well.

“We had about 25 people in here when we opened it, and no one was being quiet,” Malley said. “But there were two people walking up the hill, and until Shelly put her arm out the window, they didn’t even know we were here.”

The blind has ports at varying height levels.

“Doesn’t matter how tall or short you are, you can still see out,” Malley said. “Someone in a wheelchair can roll up, little kids can see, and there are places for photographers to set up their cameras.”

Posner’s project is an elevated viewing platform that gives reserve visitors a 360-degree view of the surrounding meadow, which is planted with native vegetation such as bottlebrush grass, ironweed and coneflowers.

“The biggest challenge was being out of my element during a lot of this,” Posner said. “I’m not a contractor, but luckily my dad is, so it was great to have him available if I got confused.”

Through some of his father Michael’s personal and professional contacts, Posner secured the materials necessary and over the course of two to three weeks and several work days, managed a work crew of fellow Scouts and parents to construct the deck.

“The nice part is, Aidan started his project a week or two after mine,” Posner said. “So we’d work on mine for a little while, and when we got done, we’d head down the trail and work on Aidan’s.”

Tichy said the Eagle projects are helpful in two ways.

“It means everything for the conservancy to be able to provide projects for these young men to demonstrate leadership,” she said. “But it also means we do projects like Zach’s platform in a more accelerated way. It means we get things done a little more quickly.”

The conservancy’s overall plan for the Morosini Reserve is to make nature accessible to anyone and everyone.

“These projects caused us to mow new trails through the fields to access them, and you can go around the reserve and see things you wouldn’t see otherwise,” Tichy said. “It helps us grow every bit as much as it helps the Scouts grow.”

The Morosini Reserve is off Morosini Farm Court in Murrysville.

For more, see WestmorelandConservancy.org.