Bethesda

Per Montgomery County: A spectacle of nature in Montgomery County is nearing its summer peak as the vast sunflower fields of the McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area on River Road in Potomac is showing off its best right now. There is no fee or permit required to access the property. The 2,000-acre tract in a mixture of woodlands, fields, wooded bottomland and managed wetland impoundments (green-tree reservoirs). The property shares a common boundary with the National Park Service Chesapeake and Ohio Canal to the south and borders Seneca Creek State Park on the east.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources—Wildlife and Heritage Service plants sunflowers each spring on the McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area. The primary purpose for planting sunflowers on wildlife management areas is to provide a food source for mourning doves, as well as other wildlife species. In addition to mourning doves, sunflowers and sunflower seeds are a favorite food source for a host of other songbirds, mammals and pollinators. Sunflowers require pollination by insects, usually bees, to produce a seed crop. In turn, honey bees and many species of native bees, benefit from the abundant nectar and pollen that sunflowers produce.