A Publication of North Fork Audubon Society, Inc

A message from our President,

I’d like to dedicate this newsletter to the memory of my dear friend, mentor and colleague at North Fork Audubon, Rick Kedenburg, who recently passed away after a long illness. Rick was a passionate birder, wildlife rehabilitator and supporter of NFAS. He and his wife Linda served on our board of directors for many years, and together they lead countless bird walks. One of my fondest memories is the evening we all shared together, long before Covid, sitting on a bench at the Jack Levin Preserve watching the fascinating aerial display of the American Woodcocks. It was St. Patrick’s Day, and we all agreed this was so much more entertaining than sitting in a bar drinking Irish Whiskey. My last conversation with Rick was about the Woodcocks and how he hoped to see them dance again. The Woodcocks fly so high, perhaps he can see them from Heaven.

-Peggy

Watching natural woodlands and fields vanish across the East End, many bird lovers are rewilding our homes with native plants that harbor birds and insects. We know wildlife numbers are plummeting as their habitat—both food and shelter—disappears. So, we are replacing old invasive plant species—such as privet and Japanese barberry, exotics that imperil healthy ecosystems—with better choices like native chokeberries and winterberries to feed insect pollinators and migrating birds.  

Finding a wide range of native plant species to buy at local nurseries is challenging. Twice a year in spring and autumn, North Fork Audubon Society (NFAS) makes this a little easier. We’re happy to announce our 2023 Spring Native Plant Sale will be held in person on Saturday and Sunday, May 20 and 21, from 9 am to 1 pm with no pre-ordering necessary. Over forty species of plants native to the Northeastern United States and locally grown by Glover Perennials—many of which are drought tolerant and deer resistant—will be showcased outdoors at the Roy Latham Nature Center at Inlet Pond County Park, 65275 Country Rte.48, in Greenport, NY 11944.  Cash, checks, and credit cards will be accepted. For more information, visit NFAS online at https://northforkaudubon.org or email Robin Simmen at rsimmen@northforkaudubon.org  

While you’re shopping for plants, plan to visit our rain garden to see many of the species being sold happily growing in a sustainable landscape. The blue flag iris may have just broken bloom! Native plants are smart—most don’t expend energy making flowers until it’s warm enough for stirring insects to pollinate them. Note the Latin and common names labelling the plants and consider picking up some of these species at the Plant Sale. 

Information on Berries for Birds, a new NFAS initiative in partnership with Dr. Douglas Tallamy’s Homegrown National Park, will be available at the Plant Sale, too, along with information about Suffolk Alliance for Pollinators (SAP), a program recently launched by CCE Suffolk to create pollinator pathways or corridors of gardens and natural places on Long Island. 

NFAS members are encouraged to volunteer to help with the Spring Native Plant Sale by emailing Robin Simmen at rsimmen@northforkaudubon.org. We especially need help unloading plants from a truck and arranging them before the sale, which will probably happen Thursday, May 18. And if you know how to pick the “right plant for the right place,” please come help us answer questions from the public during the Plant Sale!

We look forward to seeing you at the Plant Sale this year and wish everyone a very happy spring.

This past autumn and winter, NFAS volunteers, Board members, Committee members, and a hired helper continued the work of improving the IPCP trails. Over 180 volunteer hours were logged for IPCP trail work from October 2022 through March 2023. 

Following the December 2021 privet survey conducted by Dr. Andy Senesac of Cornell Cooperative Extension-Suffolk County which counted 12,008 privets within five feet on either side of the paths, we focused the last two winters on removing California privet (actually native to Korea and Japan) as well as tearing down Oriental bittersweet vines that were causing death to mature trees, and slashing Japanese multiflora roses to the ground. 

On March 30, 2023, Dr. Senesac assisted by Carol Edwards conducted a follow-up privet survey to count the privets remaining within five feet of either side of the trails. They counted 1,255 privets - a 90% reduction in 16 months. Most of the remaining ones are small.

In early fall 2022, a few traces of Mile-a-Minute not removed in June were yanked out before their berries ripened, and buried underneath cardboard in order to compost. New Board member Paula Marra and Trail Maintenance Subcommittee members Maxine Phillips and Carol Edwards helped, and Paula took videos. Paula and Maxine conversed with helper Oscar Membrano in Spanish. 

On October 25, 2022, Southold Girl Scout Troop 1214 held a dedication ceremony at Prentice Pond where they had installed five bat houses, built from kits cut by NFAS member Scott Rosen from wood donated by Riverhead Building Supply. The girls roughed up the insides of the boxes to enable the bats to grip, screwed the boxes together, and painted the exteriors black to retain heat. They were installed on the pond side of the wooden blind. As part of their Bronze Award project, the Girl Scouts created a framed poster with text and photos describing several species of native bats, that now hangs inside the Roy Latham Nature Center. Small brown bats have been seen at IPCP.

Starting in October 2022, with the ticks in abeyance, invasive plant removal along the trails resumed in earnest. Through fall and winter we worked on a regular basis every Saturday morning from 7 am till 11 am or 12 noon. It was dark at 7 am, though the winter was mild for the most part. Carol Edwards, Maxine Phillips, Chris Larkin and Julia Larkin sometimes worked during the weekdays too, and David Dilworth Sr. on occasional Sundays. The Berry family (Walter, Chrissie and their son, Eagle Scout Noah) helped clean up the native Sassafras copse on the Black Trail. A new Saturday morning regular joined, named Brian Armstrong, who just moved back to the area from the midwest. He said he recently retired and wanted something else to do besides golf. 

On a usual Saturday morning at 7 am, we load up the wheelbarrow with all our needed tools, including three or four loppers, two battery-powered chain saws (40 volt and 80 volt), a tool for adjusting the chain saw chain, two battery-powered hedgetrimmers, a hand pruner, and a weed-wrench, along with our water or beverage bottles. Some of us bring our own separate saws, loppers and pruners.

We have a younger, very capable part-timer named Oscar Membrano who helps for 4-5 hours on Saturdays. He has been teaching us Spanish words like “spina” – thorns. Another Spanish word is “fuerte” – strong – which we use to compliment Oscar after he wrenches free entangled privets that the rest of us cannot.

East of Inlet Pond and south of the viewing platform, is a stand of large, established oak trees. The team cleared a lot of privet around the oaks, and the Landscape Committee planted donated oak saplings there.

At the juncture of the Blue and Black trails not far from the Black trailhead kiosk, volunteer David Dilworth Sr. discovered and freed a small lone native American holly tree previously imprisoned by the brambles and vines. Trail Subcommittee members Nat and Mimi Donson, NFAS President Peggy Lauber, Carol and Oscar then cleared an area around the little holly. In March 2023, members of the Landscape Committee planted two donated American hollies there, to create a “Holly Triangle” (see other article).

In removing invasives from the trails, we generally focus along the walking lanes, sometimes venturing deeper off-trail. Our first priority is saving large mature trees whose health is imperiled by Oriental bittersweet and other vines. Another high priority is rescuing native saplings - but regrettably there are not a large number of them -  and smaller trees, like elderberry and staghorn sumac. We also try to improve the scenery viewable from the paths. One example is Prentice Pond, the edges of which were very overgrown with tangles of non-native Japanese multiflora rose and privet, preventing access to all but a small area. After clearing undesirables from the pond edges, much more of the pond can now be seen, with velvety moss growing on the banks. Hopefully it will be easier for animals to access the pond edge. 

We uncovered interesting rock formations (glacial erratics) previously hidden by briers and weeds. If we find attractive old stumps, we uncover those. We’ve been moving long-dead trunks from trees felled by Oriental bittersweet that were previously strewn about in an untidy fashion– “tree carcasses” I call them - and moving them to line the trails.  

Videos of our work can be seen on North Fork Audubon Society’s YouTube channel.

After a long winter and many visits to the Jack Levin Preserve (aka Arshamamoque Preserve) in Greenport, husband Paul and I were used to cold hands and tiny eBird lists. But we were optimistic; we hoped that in February, the Woodcocks would return to the preserve to perform their fabulous mating dances in the sky. And they came early this year! A Valentine’s Day surprise, as we heard their distinctive peent-ing call, just after sunset, followed by the strangely beautiful and rhythmic twitter produced by their wings as they flew high into the sky. 

But winter continued for several more weeks. The Woodcocks picked their mates and got down to the business of nesting, we presumed. Chickadees, Cardinals, Carolina Wrens, White-Throated Sparrows. Blue Jays, Crows, Canada Geese. All reliable birds, for which we are grateful, don’t get me wrong! But… we longed for more. Even the first days of spring were, well, not a lot different than the previous weeks.   

Until the evening of March 30th. We had a feeling. Every time we approach the ponds located at what is now referred to as the “old” tower – because there is a newer tower built by an Eagle Scout located at the south end of the preserve – I tell myself, “This could be the day that we’ll see a River Otter!” And every so often, we do. Buoyed by the news of a sighting of this rare and elusive creature just two days before, we walked quickly down the path. I sprinted up the stairs to the viewing platform. And there he was! Swimming solo at the far edge of the pond, we could just make him out in the evening light. He glides; then, serpent-like, dives under. You can see a faint trail at the top of the water, and if you follow it carefully, you get to see him re-emerge.  Sometimes there are three or four at once, fishing, frolicking.  It’s magical.  

But we had also read the news that just the week before, an Otter was found dead by the side of the road in Greenport - we could only wonder whether it was a family member.  There are so few, and we don’t really know for sure how many are still in residence within the Town of Southold – at least three have been hit by cars within the past 18 months. This sighting, lasting only about 30 seconds, gave us hope.

A rare Virginia Rail had also been heard from the tower in recent days - over the years I have heard them many times at this location – they make a crazy “kiddik” sound, or a series of grunts, yet rarely will you see them.

Thinking this was our lucky day already, we listened quietly. Wait – what was that, not a Rail? A Marsh Wren! Another rare bird, with the most bubbly and gurgly, soft yet insistent song. We were transfixed.

We looked down between the edge of the pond and the base of the tower. A Mute Swan was asleep on a nest, built in recent days right out in the open. While we find their presence discouraging (they deter other birds from using the pond), it was hard not to imagine that it will be fun watching the little cygnets hatch in the weeks to come. A birds’ eye view! 

And I almost forgot to mention, this was the first day we saw Ospreys at the pond! One had already taken over the large nest at the top of the electrical tower. We knew that soon there would be several; in recent years they’ve taken to building “natural” nests in the branches at the edge of the pond.  

Spirits lifted, we moved on – we had been periodically seeing and hearing Great Horned Owls in the preserve and it was dusk. We headed down the middle path, and I made sure to keep my gaze skyward in search of Owls. The week before on this same path, one had flown right over my head and I had no idea – my husband told me because he was walking behind.  My gaze lowered for a moment, which was good – because there was an Owl sitting on a branch, not 40 feet from us! I called out quietly and excitedly to Paul, who had walked right by him. We stood apart in silence, both gazing at the Owl for perhaps five minutes.  Through the binoculars, I could make out the fluffy, striated rich brown feathers of his belly, fluttering over his talons.  I could see his eyelashes.  First, he turned his gaze to Paul, unmoving, for perhaps a solid minute.  He blinked, seemingly nonchalant and almost bored, then turned to gaze at me.  I can’t say we locked eyes because mine were blocked by the binoculars, but it sure felt like it. 

It was getting dark, so we moved on. We saw movement in some nearby trees, and heard soft, high-pitched calls. Golden-crown Kinglets!

A sweet surprise, a departure from what I at first thought were “just” Chickadees.  And passing near the pond again on the return path, the distinctive rattling call of a Belted Kingfisher, probably just settling down to a branch where he would spend the night. 

The Jack Levin Preserve was at one time destined to become a regulation golf course.  It is thanks to the Levin family that I and so many others have had the privilege to connect with nature at this precious preserve.  

North Fork Audubon Society (NFAS) has a dream: Restore biodiversity within Inlet Pond County Park—our homebase in Greenport, NY—by 1) removing the invasive flora degrading its bird and wildlife habitat and 2) rewilding the park by planting native trees, shrubs, forbs, and grasses appropriate to our North Atlantic Coast bioregion. Kudos to Theresa Dilworth, Carol Edwards, Oscar Membrano and other NFAS Trail Maintenance volunteers for their hard work over the past two winters to remove 12,000 privet saplings from along park trails! 

Thanks to the open spaces they’ve cleared, during Fall/Winter ‘22/’23 NFAS Landscape Committee volunteers began the complementary work of reforesting areas of the park by planting our first 35 native trees and shrubs. Woo hoo! And where did these native plants come from? YOU: our excellent neighbors, friends, and NFAS members. To whom we say thank you, thank you, thank you! And please keep those native trees and shrubs coming our way… 

Nature abhors a vacuum, so as we clear invasive plants from IPCP, we know establishing healthy native plant communities to replace them is essential. Because this land was stripped of forest and turned into farmland by the 19th century, invasive species—so good at outcompeting natives in damaged native ecosystems—had an easy time taking over the land once farm fields went fallow. We don’t want the same invasives we’re pulling now to repopulate empty areas.

Back in 2021, the NFAS Landscape Committee started compiling a list of possible local sources of native trees. Jeffrey Brothers, a committee volunteer, offered to donate 11 red oaks and a pin oak growing on his land. Andy Senesac, another committee volunteer, offered around 90 saplings of various species, including black chokeberry, river birch, flowering dogwood, witch hazel, red oaks, and more from his private stock. NFAS had also collected some unsold natives from our Native Plant Sales, such as elderberry, which grows in the wild at IPCP.  

Then we heard about a local tree nursery being converted to an organic farm by Will Lee and Lucy Senesac, who were digging out the leftover trees. They invited us to come take a look at native trees growing there. So in February 2012, we made a field trip to their new farm and tagged a number of trees for potential transplanting, including American holly. But first we needed to clear an area at IPCP where one lone holly was struggling to survive in a mess of privet… 

Meanwhile we compared our list of possible donations with site conditions in the park, bearing in mind the need for the “right plant in the right place.” Once we had a rough idea of what we should plant where, we reached out to Suffolk County for their approval. County officials asked for a tour, then wanted photographs of all the sites and their GPS locations, so we created a map of proposed tree planting locations. Ultimately, in late October 2022 the County approved all the species shown except for white pine and red-osier dogwood.

Since hard freezes on the North Fork now come so late in the year (if at all), tree planting in November is not a bad strategy, providing the weather is rainy, as it generally is—no supplemental irrigation is available for trees being planted in the woods. So that’s when we started planting. We decided to forgo digging Will and Lucy’s American hollies until late winter but arranged to have the rest of the donated trees transported to the park.

 Within the first two weeks of November, several teams of volunteers planted more than thirty trees and shrubs, some as large as 6 feet tall (see photographs).  Most, however, were small saplings, whose biggest challenge was not being eaten by rabbits, voles and deer. Lesley Obrock, Ellen Birenbaum, Carol Edwards and Dan Shay devised some great protective barriers around the newly planted babies, including using discarded privet trunks as posts to support plastic deer barrier. For the most part, this naturalistic fencing style worked but not when voles and rabbits were able to creep under the bottom edges and devour a few transplants.

 Happily, Dan Shay took this in stride and built sturdier wire fences to replace the ineffective ones. He reported that “Rabbits were able to breach under the original netting placed around some of the plantings. Most affected were the witch hazel and flowering dogwoods. Minor damage was done to one of the gray birches and a few of the small red oaks, but they didn’t require reinforced fencing at this time due to their limited damage. We replaced some of the existing fencing with 4–5-foot metal posts, wrapped 12-inch chicken wire around the posts next to the ground, and used ground staples to fix the wire to the soil. Plastic deer barrier was then attached to the posts with cable ties and secured around the entire area.”

In March 2023, Will and Lucy had two American holly trees that were growing in their field dug, balled, and burlapped and donated them to NFAS. A thousand thanks! A team of NFAS volunteers picked them up in a truck, then carted them to the juncture of the Black and Blue trails in IPCP where that lone holly lives—and planted the two new ones alongside it to create a little grove. Hopefully they’ll cross pollinate, and birds will eat their berries and begin propagating more native hollies in the park.

None of this would be possible without the generosity of people in Suffolk County who want to save what’s left and make the world a little greener. If you have native trees or shrubs you’d like to donate toward the rewilding of IPCP, please let us know. And if you’d like to join the Landscape Committee, which meets every other month (generally on the second Tuesday), we would love to have you on board! Email me at rsimmen@northforkaudubon.org. 

As Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, said “Until you dig a hole, plant a tree, water it, and make it survive, you haven’t done a thing, you are just talking.” Working together to plant one tree at time, the satisfaction of rewilding IPCP is priceless. Please join us!

April is the month when migrating birds that have left our area for the winter start returning.  May is the month for breeding, with returning spring migrants claiming territory, and looking for nesting sites.  June is the month for raising nestlings.  The nesting period is the most dangerous period in a bird’s life.  Nestlings are highly vulnerable to a variety of predators, so lessening the time the nestlings are in the nest is an important defense mechanism.  Although young birds have a fast growth rate, the rapidity of their growth is determined by whether they have enough food to eat.   As described by Douglas W. Tallamy in his 2019 book, Nature’s Best Hope, approximately 96 percent of North American terrestrial bird species raise their young on insects rather than seeds and berries.  Very few bird species regularly feed their babies earthworms.  The insect of choice for rearing chicks is the caterpillar, the mainstay of most bird diets in North America.  Caterpillars are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera, which is the insect order comprising butterflies and moths.  

Although there are more species of beetles in North America, their thick exoskeleton and spiny, stiff legs make them difficult for birds to eat and digest.  They are often difficult to find, living underground, within seed pods, or tunneled in wood.  In contrast, the caterpillar exoskeleton is thin and flexible, making most of the caterpillar digestible.  The bodies of caterpillars are often described as soft bags filled with food.  This is important since many birds forcibly stuff food down the nestling’s throat using their beak as a plunger. Since caterpillars are exposed on vegetation, they are easier to locate. Caterpillars are large compared to other kinds of insects.  For example, it would take approximately 200 aphids to equal the weight of one medium-sized caterpillar.  

Caterpillars are more nutritious than other insects due to the high amounts of proteins, fats and carotenoids.  Carotenoids are an essential component of bird diets, stimulating the immune system, improving color vision and reproduction.  They are a major component of colorful feather pigments.  Although berries are also high in carotenoids, they are not as available during the breeding season. Field research has documented that nestlings eat full meals 30 – 40 times daily, so a habitat that does not contain enough caterpillars will not be suitable for breeding. 

There are specialized relationships between insects such as caterpillars that eat plants, i.e., insect herbivores, and the plants they eat.  90 percent of insect herbivores are plant specialists.  This means that the diet of the insect is restricted to a limited number of plants.  Plants have evolved to defend themselves against being eaten by manufacturing chemicals and storing them in leaves and other vulnerable tissues.  These chemicals are called secondary metabolic compounds and are not necessary for plant growth.  Rather, they make various parts of the plant distasteful or toxic to insect herbivores.  Examples of such toxic phytochemicals are cyanide, nicotine, cucurbitacins, and pyrethrins.  Plants also manufacture tannins which inhibit digestion.  However, through evolution, insect species have adapted to the phytochemical defenses of a few plants and are able to detoxify or excrete these secondary metabolic compounds.  These few plants comprise the diet of the insect herbivores.

The impact of invasive plant species on caterpillars and bird populations is a subject of intensive research, and it has been determined that most insects cannot breach the defenses of introduced plants.  The scope of the problem was described in the 2002 study by M.L. McKinney published in BioScience.   He examined the landscape of a typical suburban community.  It was >90 percent lawn; almost 80 percent of the plants were invasives such as Callery pear, bush honeysuckle, privet, burning bush, oriental bittersweet, barbary and Norway maple.  A study published in 2018 in Biological Invasions by M. Richard et. al., “Introduced plants reduce species interactions,” compared caterpillar communities in agricultural areas dominated by introduced plants such as autumn olive, multiflora rose, oriental bittersweet, and Japanese honeysuckle with areas comprised of native plants. The invasive plants had displaced native species like black cherry, white oak, arrowwood viburnum and sweetgum.  The study documented that the invasive plants had 68 percent fewer caterpillar species, 91 percent fewer caterpillars, and 96 percent less caterpillar biomass than the native woody plants.  He concluded that “the introduction of aggressive non-native woody species reduces native caterpillar communities so severely that their ecological functionality is questionable”.

D. Narango, D. Tallamy and P. Marra focused their 2013 research on the consequences of plant choice on the population of Carolina chickadees and the caterpillars that support them in a Washington D.C suburb.  The study, published in 2017 in Biological Conservation, lasted 3 years and used video cameras, radioisotope analysis, territory mapping, vegetation analysis, foraging observations, and citizen scientist to quantify the population growth of chickadees as a function of the percentage of introduced plants within the chickadee’s breeding territories. 

The study documented that parent birds foraged for food on native plants 86 percent of the time. Compared to primary native landscapes, yards dominated by introduced plants produced 75 percent less caterpillar biomass and were 60 percent less likely to have breeding chickadees. Nests built in yards with a predominance of introduced plants contained 1.5 fewer eggs than nests in yards dominate by natives; these nests were 29 percent less likely to survive. These nests produced 1.2 fewer chicks and slowed chick maturation by 1.5 days compared to nests located in yards with a predominance of native plants.  The authors conclude that, in yards with less than 70 percent native plants, chickadees were unable to replace the adults lost to old age and predation.

Research has also shown that native plants differ by orders of magnitude in their ability to host caterpillars, running counter to the assumption that if a plant is native it contributes a lot to the local food web.  Estimates are that only 5 percent of local plants host 70-75 percent of local Lepidoptera species.  These hyper- productive plants have been labeled Keystone plants. Quercas (oaks), Prunus (cherry) and Salix (willows) are the best examples of keystone species in the mid-Atlantic regions.  Oaks support 557 species of caterpillar.  In comparison, sycamores and sweet gum support only 45 and 35 species, respectively. The genus Solidago, goldenrods, is also highly ranked for its ability to host ecologically valuable caterpillars.  

Each one of us can help support our breeding terrestrial birds by creating landscapes in our gardens of predominantly native keystone plants.  Caterpillars have specialized relationships with these native plants and will thrive in our gardens.  Chicks will have enough to eat and will be able to leave the nest sooner, thereby increasing the likelihood of their survival.  

As the days lengthen and snow melts, who can resist dreaming about lush and colorful gardens of the coming spring and summer? While we may take great joy in viewing our gardens, the choices we make about garden care can help sustain wildlife including small but vital pollinators. For many of us gardeners, fall is the time to clean up our gardens. We have been conditioned to cut stems of perennials to the ground, rake the leaves, and make everything look tidy before the ground freezes. It’s time to rethink that approach based on current science. 

In recent years, we have seen more and more headlines about steep declines in insect populations. While some might welcome fewer bugs in their lives, this is very bad news for the health of our planet, for bird populations, for agricultural food production and therefore human populations, for functioning ecosystems, and for all the benefits associated with species diversity. The reasons for these declines are myriad: loss of habitat, pathogens, use of pesticides, climate change and associated shifting seasons, light and other types of pollution, predation, invasive  species, and more. 

Here on the North Fork, we can take steps to support insect species, including native pollinators. Many of our native bees overwinter in hollow plant stems as larvae. If we stop the practice of cutting back the stems in the fall, we preserve safe winter residences for those future pollinators. We can also leave the leaves in our garden beds, creating a natural mulch that suppresses weeds and insulates plant roots during the winter, just as nature does in unmanaged woodlands. The leaves also provide shelter for insect eggs, larvae, and adults. A sampling of the insects and life stages that overwinter in leaf litter include the eggs of Red-banded Hairstreaks (Calycopis cecrops), the pupae of Luna Moths (Actias luna), the larvae of Isabella Tiger Moths (aka Wooly Bears, Pyrrharctia isabella), and bumblebee queens, who alone start the next generation each spring.

For advice on how to tend to our gardens in a pollinator-friendly way, we can look to award-winning author Heather Holm, an expert on the interactions between native bees and native flora, and the bees’ natural history and biology. Heather outlines the following steps to create habitat for stem-nesting bees, and explains how that coincides with their year-long life cycle: To view Heather Holm’s poster illustrating the life cycle of stem-nesting bees, visit the following website and search for “stem-nesting bees”  https://www.pollinatorsnativeplants.com/plant-lists--posters.html

• Winter: Leave stems of perennials intact.

• Spring: Once night temperatures are consistently above 50 degrees, cut back dead flower stalks, leaving stubble of varying height from 8 to 24 inches. Why? Female bees find cut or naturally open stems; they start nests in the stems, lay eggs, and provision each with pollen balls to feed the larvae. 

• Summer: New growth of the perennial hides the stem stubble. Bee larvae develop in the cut dead stems during the growing season. 

• Fall and Winter: Again, leave the stems of current year’s growth. Bees (from nests created in spring) hibernate in stems during the winter. 

• Spring: Cut back dead flower stalks to varying heights. Older stem stubble will naturally decompose. Adult bees emerge and start nests in newly cut dead stems or in naturally-occurring open stems, completing the life cycle. 

With this approach, the garden may look less tidy to some people during transitional stages, but to some of our native pollinators it looks like a welcoming home. 

Summer is just around the corner, and we are excited to announce that once again, we will be offering our nature camp for kids with Environmental Educator Tyler Armstrong. Our camp aims to provide a unique experience for children by connecting them to nature and fostering a love for conservation and bird-watching. Camp days will be filled with hiking, outdoor science experiments, bird watching, beach walks and much much more! We believe that this is a valuable opportunity for children to learn about the environment and how to care for it.

Just like last year, we will be offering scholarships for kids whose families may not be able to afford camp. We believe that every child deserves the chance to connect with nature and learn about the world around them. Our scholarship program will provide financial assistance to those who need it, ensuring that all children have the opportunity to attend. We hope that you will spread the word about our camp and scholarship program, and we look forward to welcoming a diverse group of children this summer.