Looking for Color in Winter by Beth Sullivan

 

A few deep blue berries on greenbriar are welcomed by birds.

We are at the darkest days of the year. The woods can look pretty drab and it even makes me appreciate  just a bit of snow to brighten the scenery.  But take a walk and look closely and you will find some welcome color.

We all know our pines, spruce, firs, and cedars the bigger evergreens of the woodlands.  They provide great protection for birds and other small creatures when the winter winds blow and snows fall.  Their cones hold nutritious seeds, high in fats and proteins that the wildlife need to help them through the cold season.

Mountain laurel thickets keep us green all winter.

Look a little lower, the shrub layer in many of our woodlands is dominated in places by our State Flower: Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia).  Drive along many of our roads where the scenery is rocky and rough and you will welcome the sight of gnarled branches and leathery green leaves of this lovely shrub. While it doesn’t provide a food supply, the usefulness as nesting sites for forest birds is often revealed in winter.  (Tefftweald in North Stonington, Hoffman Preserve in Stonington)

Wintergreen holly loses its leaves
and the berries are standouts! 

Our native hollies provide winter interest. Our native evergreen     American holly, ( Ilex opaca) the familiar Christmas decoration,  has    spikes on the leaves  to deter deer but the berries are feasted upon by many birds  through the winter, as long as they last. Robins, Thrushes, Cedar Waxwings and Bluebirds in particular will find a bush and claim it!

Our other native holly, Winterberry (Ilex verticillata)is deciduous, but its berries glow red on bare branches during this season.   These berries often do not fully ripen until they have been cold for a long time, then they actually ferment and the birds love them.  This is true of many berries that remain on the bush through the winter: Viburnum and crab apple in particular. Those birds know how to wait until the vintage is perfect!

Look in the most tangled thickets to find dark blue or purple berries of viburnum, greenbrier and Virginia creeper. All of these are sought after by birds.  At Knox Preserve the field cedars/junipers have blue fruits prized by many birds through the winter.

Club moss emerges
above the snow.

Club Mosses (Lycopodium sp.), such as Princess Pine and Ground Cedar ( they have multiple common names), will populate the ground in patches. Years ago they were harvested irresponsibly for Christmas decorations and the populations were nearly decimated.  Garden Clubs have protected the species by refusing to pick it or sell decorations using the club mosses.

Many species of true mosses seem to become more intensely emerald at this time of year.  Others take on softer tones. They are all welcome sights amid the brown and grays on the ground. They are especially lovely peeking through the snow. 

Partridge berry hugs the ground.

There are a few evergreen plants, still holding leaves: Christmas Fern for one, each ‘leaflet’ on a frond
  has a “toe” creating a “stocking”.  Partridgeberry is a sweet vining plan with delicate evergreen leaves. The occasional red berry remains on the plant as an invitation to a ‘Partridge’ who may favor the berries. Sadly our native partridge or quail, the Bobwhite is considered extirpated from Connecticut.  Only to be remembered in Christmas song, being in a Pear Tree!

Many people truly look forward to the pure and dazzling white of a pristine snowfall.  But, since we haven’t had but one this season, enjoy finding bits of color on your woodland walks.

A Cedar Wax-wing knows when the berries
are at the peak of their sugar content.

The brightest emerald in the woods!

Looking forward with 2020...in 2021

 by Beth Sullivan

The littlest ones will always need a 
guiding hand.

Happy New Year. A new year, a new decade, possibly a new way to think. Most of us try to start a new year with resolutions, or at least good intentions to do something different. It might be to exercise more, eat healthier, or lose weight. It also could be to take a class, start a project, or learn a skill. For others it is cleaning up, clearing out, purging papers, and reducing clutter in our lives.

I got thinking about a different path. Maybe it’s because ‘2020’ is also linked with good vision. We are able to look forward clearly but also be in the present clearly, consciously.
Our vision for the future is entirely entwined with our children, the children of the world. Think of what we can teach them. What can we show them, both beautiful and inspiring, and not so beautiful but hopefully inspiring in a different way? All parents know you cannot force a toddler or a teenager to comply with our every wish, but what we can do is gently and patiently open their eyes to their potential and guide them on a 2020 path of clear sight to improve our world and make a positive difference. It’s just one year, concentrating not on ourselves, but having a greater vision and understanding that as one person, we can truly make a difference. Maybe it will become a new habit. 

Some contacts don't need masks.
Encourage them.

That is what I wrote for the first blog of 2020.   Who could have known what we would go through and witness with our “2020 vision”?  But I read those words several times and realized there was a lot of truth to them, but maybe not exactly what we imagined.  “A new way to think”: That’s for sure.  We all had to change how we thought about almost everything.  So many things we took for granted, now became focal points. People we may have taken for granted, were now recognized as essential.   Hugging and touching, basic human contacts became actions we had to pre-think and even avoid.  We were all finally getting on the right track to avoid plastics, disposables and bringing our own bags to the grocery store. Unfortunately, I am afraid the pandemic put some of the ecological thinking on the back burner for a while. Much of the large scale, international, and certainly national efforts to clean up the environment and reduce emissions became secondary to the pandemic affecting lives all around the world.

Maybe our new exposure to such places
will increase our desire to preserve
and protect them

 But think about the rest of it: there really were ways we  grew, and many more opportunities to observe and appreciate what we have. One of the most obvious side- impacts of 2020, had to do with people being more aware of the natural world. It was truly unfortunate that many people had to give up jobs, or work from home, and kids were out of school, but it created opportunities for many of us to turn to Nature for recreation, exercise, education, companionship and respite. As an outcome, just possibly, children may have come to greater curiosity, understanding and love for Nature and with that will come a caring for the environment, habitats and ecosystems in the future.

So, my hope for 2021 is that we have learned from 2020 insights.  We have learned the importance of people and services that are truly essential. We need to trust science in matters of health, and environment.  We will never take for granted a hug, a handshake or even a smile.   We have come to know our outdoor havens and how good nature is for the soul.  Let’s please resolve to keep other important things in our vision for 2021 to remain safe and grateful for the good in the world.

Wishing a Happy, Healthy New Year to all.  Beth

There are many mysteries to be unraveled this winter

The ultimate sign of hope that the winter
ahead will end.

Maybe when the bloodroot blooms this spring,
things will be a lot better.

Natural intricacies are not changed by human concerns.

 

Gratitude

 

By Beth Sullivan

We have come to the end of the year. A year that most of us would like to forget. A year that has brought such huge disruption and trauma into everyone’s lives.  But, I have made it a point to try, each day, to reflect on how lucky I am, how grateful I am, for each small thing, and I find that they are too numerous to count.  

 I am especially grateful for our collaboration with the Sea Grant program of University of Connecticut for putting together an amazing proposal to get us a Long Island Sound Futures Fund Grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to restore a resilient forest at Hoffman Preserve,  which will be adapted to the warming climate of the future.  The following article is the official press release by Judy Benson.

A very special thank you to Al Bach for being the master behind this blog for 8 years and his wife Lisa, my dear friend who patiently edited all my erratic sentences!   It was his encouragement and willingness to do the technical work to set it up and post it, that gave me the opportunity to write about things I love and wanted to share.  That part of the team is retiring after this post.  I hope to keep writing, but I am not sure who will have the patience to deal with my punctuation.  

We are grateful for opportunities to educate and inform our visitors.

We are grateful for opportunities to encourage community involvement.

We are grateful for opportunities to test how some southern species will grow in our preserves.

We are grateful for opportunities that allow acorns to become oaks.

We are grateful for opportunities that allow a new forest to grow green.

 

Photographs by Beth Sullivan.

 

                                                                           

 

Dec. 18, 2020

CT Sea Grant, Avalonia project looks to prepare forest preserve for the future

Stonington – Battered by coastal storms and infestations of wooly adelgids, gypsy moth, winter moth and emerald ash borer, sections of the 200-acre Hoffman Evergreen Preserve will now serve as a living lab and demonstration site for how land managers can help forests adapt to climate change.

“We want to increase the resilience of the forest and maintain the water quality filtration services it provides to Long Island Sound,” said Juliana Barrett, coastal habitat specialist for Connecticut Sea Grant. “We’re trying to plant the right trees for the right time.”

Owned by the Avalonia Land Conservancy and popular with hikers and bird watchers, sections of the forest became unsafe over the last decade due to large numbers of diseased and storm-damaged trees. That prompted the land trust to contract with Hull Forest Products to do selective logging in 2019 that left open areas that will now be the subject of a joint project between Avalonia and CT Sea Grant.

“This is about helping to restore a healthy forest,” said Beth Sullivan, Stonington chairperson for Avalonia. “It’s something we’ve been working towards for the last five to six years.”

A grant of $57,144 from the Long Island Sound Futures Fund, announced last week, will provide funds for the development of a unique forward-looking forest management plan for the cleared areas, along with a series of public education programs. Barrett said the project is one of the first of its kind in Connecticut that incorporates climate change projections and assisted migration techniques for plants better adapted to future conditions. Some seedlings and seeds will be planted as part of the yearlong project, chosen both for their ability to regenerate under future climate conditions and their value as food sources for wildlife. Robert Ricard, a forester and senior extension educator with UConn, will help develop the plan and planting list, and provide guidance on the best locations for particular species.

“We’re going to try some species at the edge of their limits in Connecticut that, based on climate change projections, we think will do well,” Barrett said.

Instead of replanting the same species of hemlocks, oaks and ash shown to be vulnerable to the pests and weather disruptions brought by climate change, the plan will identify tree and shrub species likely to be more resilient in warmer temperatures. These could include loblolly pine, tulip poplar, sweetgum and others more common in the mid-Atlantic region. About a dozen loblolly pine seedlings planted last spring, in fact, have already become well established despite last summer’s drought, Sullivan said.

The preserve, located at the north end of town several miles from the shoreline, nonetheless provides important services to Long Island Sound by absorbing runoff and filtering pollutants that would end up in the estuary, Barrett noted.

The public education component was developed with Avalonia project collaborator Sharon Lynch, George Washington University professor emerita in the School of Education and Human Development. An expert in science teacher education, Lynch currently works on education initiatives with the National Science Foundation. The education component will consist of a series of four webinars on topics relevant to the project, including the history of New England forests and the carbon sequestration services they provide. The series is intended for municipal officials, land trust officials, forest landowners and the general public. In addition, a two-day workshop on guiding principles for coastal forest resilience in the Long Island Sound region will be offered specifically for municipal officials, resource managers, land trust officials, forest landowners and students. An accompanying fact sheet will be developed and published.

Nancy Balcom, CT Sea Grant associate director of CT Sea Grant, said she hopes the project will provide valuable information for land managers throughout the region.

“Given the devastation our local forests have suffered which threatens their ability to provide critical ecosystem and recreational services, it’s important to not only test the ability of new species to survive and thrive in our changing climate but to also share the progress and results widely so other land trusts and organizations can pursue similar paths,” she said.

Barrett said the lessons learned at the Hoffman preserve will be shared with other land trusts and land managers, and hopes that tours of the site can be offered in the future to show how different plant species are adapting. The project, she said, will be an opportunity “to educate and engage land trust stewards, resource managers, municipal officials and neighbors in understanding coastal forest ecosystem services, impacts of climate change on these systems and guiding principles for management under changing conditions.”

The grant for the Hoffman Preserve, which will be matched with $33,600 in in-kind services from Avalonia volunteers, is one of 38 awarded in this year’s Long Island Sound Futures Fund program. The 15-year-old program combines funds from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to support projects that improve the water quality and restore habitat in the Long Island Sound watershed. This year, $3.8 million in funding will support 15 projects in Connecticut, 14 in New York, three in Massachusetts, three in Vermont, one in New Hampshire and two in multiple states.

“It is heartwarming to see innovation at work, people and organizations getting together, planning and acting now for what the world will look like in decades,” said Sylvain De Guise, director of CT Sea Grant. “At the same time, it is encouraging that grant programs are open enough to recognize and fund innovation, even if riskier than sticking with old habits.

“I think we are heading in the right direction,” he concluded.

Connecticut Sea Grant, located at the University of Connecticut’s Avery Point campus in Groton, is one of 34 Sea Grant programs across the country focused on projects that support healthy coastal ecosystems, environmental literacy, resilient communities, fisheries and aquaculture. For information, visit: seagrant.uconn.edu.