From the Field - Crow's Nest Preserve

Camp fun!

Here's a picture of campers exploring Pine Creek, looking for crayfish under rocks and watching fish.

Campers made clothes trees at camp this year (many while sporting last year's camp T-shirt)! This complex craft used natural materials from the preserve, with "branches" mortised into the trunk-like post.

Summer intern and camp counselor Sean Quinn had begun to see the image of mile-a-minute in his nightmares—he has spent so much time this summer pulling it—so his fellow counselors decorated his car with giant mile-a-minute vines one day at camp as a joke.

At camp we demonstrated tree removal techniques by cutting down a tree (a damaged mulberry). In this picture, the kids are placing flags where they think the top will fall. It's not exactly a Soren Erkison chainsaw course, but the kids did really well.

More camp fun!

On Thursday at camp we took a field trip to Binky Lee Preserve, where over the years Natural Lands Trust has planted over 10,000 trees. Preserve Manager Darin Groff, who headed up this afforestation of marginal farmland almost 15 years ago, showed us around the preserve. I too remember planting these little dormant bare-root seedlings and am still a little stunned at how big and wonderful the trees have grown.

Darin showed us the tree tubes that protect the tree seedlings from deer. Trees we planted on the same day without tubes are still alive, but they are only two feet tall, continually eaten by deer. The others tower over us, and though he is still maintaining between them, really look like a forest. Campers also saw a pond dam being removed to restore natural stream flow, the meadows where Natural Lands Trust first started its prescribed fire program, and lots of bluebird boxes. We finished our visit with a picnic lunch by the springhouse.

At camp each week we also have taken the kids to a maze we made in the pine forest, and had them negotiate the rope-guided course blindfolded, so they learn to use their other senses in the woods.

And at Crow's Nest Camp we also demonstrate the tools of wildland firefighting that we also use in our prescribed fire program. Each of the kids tried out the Indian tank, spraying each other with the ultimate soaker, refreshing on a really hot day!

More camp activities

Summer camp has continued to be entertaining, at least for the staff. We think the kids are having fun, too. One of the crafts has been making giant mushrooms, hickory nuts, and acorns to populate the floor of the forest in the barn upstairs.

Here's the view from atop the giant tree stump inside the barn, looking down at campers suspended in a huge spider web and checking out the oversized habitat they created.

Kids contemplate their next moves in "giant checkers" played with tree sections of black cherry versus walnut. You might think of checkers as a quiet, tranquil game, but when played this way it sounds like a thunderstorm.

Down at the Creek

The forecasters called for a dangerously hot day today, but it was cold down at the creek, where we summer campers spent part of the afternoon. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it. While there, I saw this Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele) on a swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). Compare this with the common milkweed found at the pond, below.

Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) also grows at two locations in open, wet woods along French Creek. This is a plant that blew my mind when I first arrived at Crow's Nest. Having worked at public gardens and arboreta, I had seen this plant in cultivation, but had never seen it growing on its own in the wild. It's a short lived perennial, although some sites will aslo support its regeneration by seed, so the population remains present.

Down at the Pond

We have one small pond at Crow's Nest. We manage a wildflower meadow around it, which prevents the over-use by geese that is a frequent problem in ponds that have mowed lawn right up to the water. It also provides a good opportunity to grow wet-meadow plants, and the pond is a frequent host of great blue herons.

Above is common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) that attracts butterflies around the pond. Dragonflies and damselflies flit and hover around the pond, too.

Blue vervain (Verbana hastata) has also started to bloom in the wet meadow around the pond. We mow this area just once a year, when the ground is frozen hard enough to support the weight of the tractor, or if too warm for that, with a walk-behind field mower. The New York ironweed will also bloom here a bit later in the season.

By the way, we don't have a geese problem at this pond (resident geese that persist and foul the pond), most likely because we maintain tall vegetation of a meadow around it. Geese prefer close-cropped lawns right up to the water's edge to maintain visibility of predators, and we mow the meadow only once a year.

Camp, week three

We are well into the summer camp season, and having a good time, even when just hanging out. An expressed purpose of our camp is to provide supervised but unstructured time for kids to explore nature and interact with it in a way that children rarely have the opportunity to today.

We may also have the only camp where the kids have the opportunity to see a tree made into its finished product—a board that they carried a half mile back to the barn. Each week a log from our pile of hazard trees gets set on the Woodmiser and milled while they watch. Then it gets passed through a planer to make a finished board, which the kids will use in their projects.

In an effort to make use of every part of the tree, we also made sculptures out of sawdust!

Additional scenes

This wildflower is blooming along the creek; called germander or wood sage (Teucrium canadense), this plant has a distinctive one-lipped flower with four stamens projecting above each.

So far this summer, the woods do not seem to be as full of spider webs as last year—the person who leads hikes always collects them on his or her face! But there are still some beautiful ones. The web serves as a metaphor for our connectedness with other species, and, since webs are rebuilt each day, a reminder of the persistence of life.

These Canada lilies (Lilium canadense) are also blooming along French Creek. We like these flowers so much that a picture of them will grace the cover of our revised trail map, due to be completed this fall.

Prodigal Summer

No, I am not referring to the very good novel by Barbara Kingsolver. Rather, we have reached that point in summer where the earth is bursting with growth. Though I enjoy summer—I really don't mind the heat—I am happy that there will be a cessation to all this rampant growth before too long.

The desirable plants are groaning with the weight of their new growth. They need to be pruned if they are anywhere near a path, building, or bench. And the undesirable plants, mostly invasive vines, appear to be taking over the world (which, actually, they may be). I can't cut, prune, or spray fast enough!

Winter isn't really down time; there is still plenty to do. But I think I would exhaust myself if I had to keep up with this summer growth year 'round!

More to see at the preserve!

The candles of black cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa) light up the dark woods in early July at the preserve. Also called bugbane, this plant's unpleasant odor was used to repel bugs.

Kids at camp found this small snapping turtle. Kind of cute when they're small, right? Last week I saw one in the Schuykill River while I was standing on the Falls Bridge. It looked large enough to give me a ride, were it so inclined. I reckoned it was not.

A plant that is growing along the creek here, and even occasionally in the roadside drainage ditches, is monkey flower (Mimulus ringens). Blooming now, the flower is supposed to look like a monkey's face.

Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) is a wonderful shrub that reliably attracts butterflies. Found throughout the wetlands here, the roots sometimes form an elevated, protective crown that wildlife uses for shelter. I planted one in the yard, to replace a non-native (and apparently invasive) butterfly bush, and have been pleased with it.

We have a lot more of the native fringed loostrife (Lysimachia ciliata) this year than I have seen before, and I am happy to see it. This plant is no relation to purple loostrife (Lythrum salicaria), an invasive plant that chokes wetlands. Even though their common names are remarkably similar, they are not even in the same families (Primulaceae vs. Lythraceae).

Camp On!

Today at camp we did a stream walk, rode on the haywagon, and worked some more on crafts.

We also started some experiments on seed germination in the presence of extracts we made from the leaves of walnut, hickory, tuliptree, and other trees (as well as a control that is only water). Some of these species are known to be allelopathic, that is, they release chemicals that suppress the growth of other plants, a way of gaining a competitive advantage.

Among the many arts projects we are doing is creating a giant mobile to be hung inside the hayloft of the barn. Here kids are making clay leaves that will hang from the two-story ceiling.