Natural Lands Trust Preserve Blog

Gwynedd Preserve Open House

This Saturday, May 19, Natural Lands Trust will be holding an Open House at Gwynedd Wildlife Preserve. Whether you are a regular visitor or have never been to Gwynedd, this is a wonderful chance to discover everything that the preserve has to offer. We'll be holding a series of events throughout the day--come to any or all of them, or just stop by the preserve center to say hello before heading out for a hike on your own.

• 8:30am    Bird Walk - warblers, sparrows, and birds of prey are among the highlights
• 9:30am    Cofee and muffins in the preserve center
• 10:00am  Work Project - cut invasive vines in the hedgerows and woods of the preserve
• 11:30am  Lunch - roast hotdogs over an open fire
• 12:15pm  Hayride - tour the preserve's grasslands and woodlands in the hay wagon
• 1:00pm    Grasslands Walk - learn about what we're doing to restore native warm season grasslands at the preserve.

No advanced registration is necessary. For directions, visit the Gwynedd Wildlife Preserve page on Natural Lands Trust's website. We hope to see you on Saturday!

Gwynedd: Prescribed Burn

The Gwynedd Wildlife Preserve once again used a prescribed burn to control non-native and other woody plants in the grasslands around the preserve. This year we burned the native warm season grass meadow along the right side of the driveway near the office. The warm season grasses are still dormant at the time of the burn so they are not affected by the intense heat the thatch layer creates. On the other hand, the non-native plants are already beginning to leaf out and are killed by the flames. Everyone on Natural Lands Trust's fire team is federally certified to fight wildfire. Thanks to all who helped out in this year's burn. Check back for photos of the grasses regeneration in coming months.

Christmas Tree Recycling Project

Every year the Gwynedd Wildlife Preserve collects Christmas tree's in the neighborhood after the holiday season for recycling. The tree's are are collected and chipped for mulch on the preserve. In the photo, Stewardship Assistant, Sean Quinn is running the trees through the tree chipper. Thanks to all the preserve neighbors for participating! This year we collected 42 trees. The chips will be put to good use on the preserve and there is a little less debris in the landfill.   

Tree Planting

On October 24th and 25th, Natural Lands Trust Stewardship staff came to the Gwynedd Preserve for a reforestation project. The goal was to plant 900 mixed native hardwood trees in a three acre meadow.  This planting will help control storm water run off into the creeks that boarder the meadow. These two tributaries eventually flow into the Wissahickon Creek. To prevent damage from the white tailed deer, the trees were protected with Tubex tree shelters as seen in the photos. (You can click on each photo to see a larger version.) It will take several years for the trees to get established above the reach of the deer. Thanks to all the Land Managers for their help on the Preserve. Without them, this project would have been difficult to accomplish. 

Preserve Update

It has been six months since the prescribed burn took place on the preserve. The native warm season grasses have reached their maximum growing hight of six feet. They are also going to seed at the present time, giving the grasses their vibrant fall colors. And best of all, there are very few or no invasive plants to be found in the stand!

The Gwynedd preserve is also home to several different native wildflowers.  In this picture, a migrating Monarch Butterfly is feeding on New York Ironweed. This plant is found throughout the preserve along with Rudbeckia, Joe-Pye Weed and Butterfly Weed.

This October we are planning to restore this three acre meadow back to forest. We will be planting hardwoods native to the area. In all 900 trees will be planted in this reforestation project. Check back in late October for photos of the planting.

Warm Season Grass Update

It has been just about three months since the prescribed burn took place at the preserve. The grasses are now regenerated and well on their way to maturity. Our goal was to reduce the numbers of invasive plants in the meadows. The fire did a wonderful job at that. We did have a small outbreak of Canada Thistle which was controlled by a light application of broad-leaf herbicide. Here in this picture, Stewardship Assistant, Rebecca Shields-Moose stands in the grass that are now almost two feet in length. The grasses will reach a height of six feet by august.

On June 22nd Michele Goodmann from Webbed Foot Wildlife contacted me about a few Killdeer she would like to re-release onto the preserve. Webbed Foot Wildlife rehabilitates  native waterfowl, raptors, shore birds, game birds and wading birds. She brought along two young Killdeer to release. So we took them down to the preserves wetlands and opened the door and off the two birds went. They circled the wetlands a few times and then were off to explore the rest of the preserve. Hopefully they will make the preserve their home for good. Please contact preserve manager Tom Kershner before any wildlife is re-released onto the preserve. Thanks

Prescribed Burn Results

It has been almost been a month since we had the prescribed burn here at Gwynedd. The native warm season grasses are just starting to regenerate as the soil temperatures start to increase with the warming weather.

Almost all of the undesired plants have been killed by the fire. The one lone invasive plant that survived the fire--and in fact is benefited by it--is the Canada Thistle. Thistle hadn't been growing in the meadow prior to the burn, although its seeds had been lying dormant in the soil from many years before, unable to grow due to the thick matte of grasses over them. By burning away the grasses, we've released these seeds to sprout. Even with the growth of the the thistle, though, the burn has done more good than harm. Only a few small patches of the thistle are growing, and all of the other invasives are gone, so overall we need less herbicide to control the invasives in the meadow.

In these photos you can see the warm seasons regenerating. You can also see the oriental bittersweet has not come back from such intense heat from the fire.

Prescribed Burn

On March 27th 2006 Natural Lands Trust staff conducted a prescribed burn on portions of the warm season grass meadows. Here are some photos of the meadow before the burn, during the burn, and after.

These controlled burns help encourage the native grasses to grow and kill the unwanted invasive vegetation. All of the staff involved are Federally trained to fight wildfires. Check back here weekly to see the results of the burn.

Blue Bird Box Building Day

On February 2nd, a group of NLT staff members met at Gwynedd to build nesting boxes for Bluebirds. In all we built sixty-five Bluebird boxes and ten Woodpecker boxes.  These boxes will be placed on Natural Lands Trust preserves, and hopefully will help hundreds of young Bluebirds to fledge out this spring. Thanks to Mariton Wildlife Sanctuary Preserve Manager Tim Burris for milling and delivering all the lumber for the boxes.