BTV Conservation News
The Pulse of Burlington’s Wild Green Heart
Fall 2020
Issue No. 14
A Letter from Dan & Alicia
As the weather begins to cool and the autumn leaves change colors, Burlington’s natural areas are a sanctuary from daily life. With its falling leaves, autumn reminds us that letting go is part of the cycle of life. We are so lucky to share our Burlington home with so many species of plants and animals. In the GIF above a gray fox (yes, you will see a rusty red in the coat) drinks from a pool of water in Pomerleau Forest.
In this issue, explore the natural history of Rock Point from bedrock to birds on a guided video tour created by the BPRW Conservation Team. Rock Point has a new conservation easement saving the land for future generations and it is yours to enjoy today. Please visit the Rock Point website to obtain a visitor pass. Also in this issue, the much maligned fisher, a member of the weasel family, was spotted this spring with a family of kits not far from Burlington’s southern border. What does it mean to share our woods with this mysterious animal? Also as hardwood trees change color, find out how to identify them by the colors they turn.
BPRW is hard at work on projects that support biodiversity in the City such as replacing annuals with perennial flowering plants. We are also reaching out to private landowners through the Half Yard Project seeking to share our enthusiasm and growing expertise by encouraging interested Burlington residents to convert half of their yards and flower gardens to native plants for pollinators and other insects.
How else can you engage in outdoor activities in Burlington? Join us in planting 800 native trees and shrubs at McKenzie Park along the Winooski River. This multiyear ecological restoration effort in will expand the floodplain forest buffer helping to stabilize the river shore and providing more habitat for wildlife. Or help us create a Season’s Clock for Burlington. Or play fall bingo with kids–you can even include some online players by sharing bingo cards with them. Below is a link to six different cards to share.
These past six months have been a challenge. We hope that you can find ways for our open spaces and the nature in them to safely support and bolster your physical and mental wellness during this time of social distancing and sheltering near home.
We hope to see you (from a safe distance) in the woods,
Alicia Daniel
Field Naturalist, BPRW
Dan Cahill,
Land Steward, BPRW
Rock Point Walk, Fishers (and Other Wildlife) in Our Forests, Trees and Fall Colors
Guided Walk at Rock Point
Rock Point with its world famous view of the Champlain Thrust Fault, westward view of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks and rare Limestone Bluff Cedar Pine Forest is a jewel in the crown of our Queen City. Join BPRW Field Naturalist, Alicia Daniel, on a guided walk through this beautiful landscape. The Rock Point Episcopal Diocese welcomes you to visit–please visit the Rock Point website to obtain a visitor pass, stay on the trails, travel on foot and leash you dog–so that Rock Point remains a true sanctuary for humans and for wildlife and plants.
Click here to see the Rock Point Tour Video
courtesy of Kyle Tansley
Fishers in Our Forests
It may or may not be the case that Burlington’s fishers have adjusted to the comings and goings of your neighbor’s minivan, but one thing is certain, fishers are here and unlikely to leave any time soon. Despite the well documented presence in our midst, it is unlikely that most people will encounter one. These secretive animals have no interest in making contact with any of us and they find plenty of prey without tracking down your cat or mine.
Click here to read the article by Declan McCabe
Tracking Burlington Wildlife Using Game Cameras
Game cameras set up around Burlington have created a window into the world of wildlife. We recently saw a fisher on our wildlife camera at Burlington’s new natural area behind 311 North Avenue. See the fisher and some of other amazing wildlife photos taken in the wildways of Burlington. Find out who is hunting, playing, and finding mates and shelter in our wild places. The answers may surprise you!
Click here to view BPRW’s wildlife camera photos
Click here to see wildlife photos taken by the Lower Winooski Valley Project in the Intervale
What’s Up with Tree Color in Fall?
Contrary to popular belief, most deciduous trees turn one color in the fall rather than follow a procession of yellow to orange to red. Their hue depends primarily on the dominant pigment the tree produces throughout the year. For instance, carotene is the orange pigment that belongs to sugar maples, while the yellow pigment xanthophyll characterizes American beech, green ash, paper birch, shagbark hickory, bigtooth and quaking aspens, and a handful of oaks. With a bit of practice, you can pick out tree species from a distance in the falljust by using shape and color. Click here to read the article by Claire Dumont
Conservation Corner
Meet Jennifer Ely: Arms Forest Ambassador
Since retiring as Director of the Winooski Valley Park District, Jennifer Ely finds herself walking seven days a week in Arms Forest. “The spring wildflowers are amazing and I love coming in the winter to see the animal tracks. I also visit the vernal pool. I pop in to hear the frogs peeping. Arms is always in motion. I like to see the changes that are happening. It is the wonderful four-seasons-of-Vermont on display.”
Click here to read the article
More Native Plants for Pollinators
BPRW is excited to be replacing many annual plants with a variety of new flowering perennials around the city. Perennial plants, that flower year after year, are more cost effective and just as beautiful. When perennial plants are native, they are especially well suited to hosting local pollinating insects and birds who rely on tasty caterpillars to feed their young. Some caterpillar feed exclusively on one type of native plant. So native perennial plants increase biodiversity and promote climate resilience, making Burlington an oasis for wild insects and birds now and into the future.
Click here to see the video by Dan Cahill
Leave Some Fallen Leaves: Creating Overwintering Shelter for Insects
Cooler nights, shots of bright color here and there; soon our trees will drop their leaves onto our lawns. Do we have to rake them ALL up? Leaving the fallen leaves allows their nutrients to be recycled by diverse forest litter organisms in the tree’s root zone and provides habitat for salamanders, chipmunks, toads, millipedes and many insect species. As leader in the Half Yard Project, Kate Kruesi urges you to think before you rake.
Click here to read the article by Kate Kruesi
Regenerative Plantings at McKenzie Park
McKenzie Park lies deep in the Intervale and is the site of various projects giving native species a fighting chance against invasives that threaten the riparian forest. Working with the Intervale Center and Got Weeds?, BPRW has been planting hundreds of saplings a year while also pulling acres of Japanese knotweed. This fall, a “direct seeding” project is underway and we are looking for volunteers to help plant 800 more native trees.
Click here to read about the Direct Seeding Project
Click here to sign up to plant trees at McKenzie Park October 28th!
BPRW Partners with 350 Vermont to Rewild Vermont
Burlington Parks Recreation and Waterfront is teaming up with 350 VT’s REWILD VERMONT project to to meet the ambitious goal of planting 100 thousand trees across the state by the end of 2022.
Read more about this exciting initiative
Burlington Wildways News
Burlington Wildways is a partnership that connects and protects the wild places and paths of Burlington, Vermont. The new websites features trail maps of the wild places in Burlington. People are finding refuge in the natural areas in Burlington and now they can find their way around, too, by showing their location on the mobile map. Check it out!
Click here to visit the website
Burlington Seasons Clock Updates
This project, which focuses on the phenology, or relationship between species and the seasons, is seeking community help in identifying our neighbors… our wild neighbors! To date the project, hosted on iNaturalist.org, has accumulated over 400 observations by citizen scientists of our 44 focus species this year. Join the fun and help us document when many animals and plants are last seen in Burlington until the spring. Find our project here or learn more about it on the BPRW and Burlington Wildways webpages.
Vermont Master Naturalist BTV Program
BPRW Partners with Vermont Master Naturalist For a Fifth Year
Vermont Master Naturalist got its start partnering with BPRW five years ago when a team of people sat around a picnic table out at Ethan Allen Homestead. Since then the VMN vision to build community and connect Vermonters to their towns through professional training and volunteer conservation projects has expanded to eight other regions in Vermont. Vermont Master Naturalists are now hard at work in their towns replanting riparian buffers, creating pollinator habitat,
documenting wildlife corridors, managing invasive plant and animal species, revitalizing conservation commissions, and leading public walks. This fall, thirteen more people are starting professional training with VMN in Burlington. If you want to learn more about the natural history of Vermont, visit the VMN website’s resource library for videos, articles and more. And if you want to join VMN, watch for an application in the 2021 spring issue of this newsletter.
Click here for link to VMN Resources
Burlington Area Community Gardens
Raising the Next Generation of Gardeners A generous Baird Community gardener allowed the Recreation and Nutrition Program to use their plot this summer as a place to explore and learn about nature. This summer garden became a magic place. Equipped with magnifying glasses and watering cans, BPRW’s Ellen Gawarkiewicz and South Meadow youth spent time focusing through the senses–honing in on the sound of a fresh cucumber crunch, savoring the citric taste of yellow wood sorrel, smelling deeply into a garlic flower, feeling through the soil to make a seed hole, or watching the eggs of a spider change over time.
Click here to read the article by Ellen Gawarkiewicz
Compost Happens
With enough buckets & tight-fitting lids, with a fair bit of elbow grease (turning the piles, checking the temperature, cleaning the buckets, scrounging enough hay or leaves, grinding up garden debris with the lawn mower), Calahan Community Garden leaders Andy Simon and Ruby Perry make enough good quality compost for their 1500 square foot vegetable and flower garden. Everything that grows at their place (and a fair amount that grows elsewhere) eventually goes back into building soil. You can compost at home, too. Read Andy’s article to learn how they do it.
Click here to read the article by Andy Simon
Outdoor Activities
Fall Bingo
Get outside and play bingo with BPRW! Practice uploading your photos of these species to iNaturalist.org and help contribute to the Burlington Seasons Clock 2020!
Click here to find our project on iNaturalist
Click here to download the bingo board
Burlington Seasons Clock Project 2020
Burlington Geographic, Burlington Wildways, Burlington Parks, Recreation and Waterfront, and Burlington City and Lake Semester invite you to help us create a phenology clock: a seasonal clock of the natural world!
Join our project on iNaturalist or learn more about it on the BPRW and Burlington Wildways webpages. See our clock progress through the year with Burlington’s iNaturalist observations below!
Vermont Master Naturalist Resource Library
Find articles, videos, and wildlife guides in the Resource Library
Branch Out Burlington
Click here for details
Burlington Permaculture
For information about the Bi-Monthly Burlington Permaculture Meetup on the 1st and 3rd Monday of the month visit Burlington Permaculture on Facebook to RSVP and for more details.
Conservation News Archive
Read Past Conservation News:
May/June 2020
Spring 2020
Fall/Winter 2019/2020
Spring 2019
Winter 2018
Fall 2018
May/June/July2018
February/March/April 2018
December 2017/January 2018
September/October/November 2017
July/August 2017
May/June 2017
March/April 2017
BTV Conservation News edited by Alicia Daniel, Gustave Sexauer, and Dan Cahill Banner Photo: Gray Fox at Pomerleau Forest
City of Burlington – Parks, Recreation & Waterfront, 645 Pine St. Suite B, Burlington, VT 05401