Morse Preserve Dedication

Morse Preserve in Alton Bay is looking more spectacular than ever lately. Though the Forest Society has owned the property for a few years now, we held a formal dedication earlier this month to honor the donation of this 431 acre reservation by Alton native Mary Jane Morse Greenwood. The property had been her family's land for generations, and she grew up harvesting and selling blueberries, eggs, and other produce on the slopes of Pine Mountain. To prepare for the dedication, a number of land stewards got together to spruce up the trails and make sure everything was in top condition. The Forest Society has also been doing some heavier duty habitat management on the property lately: mowing and brontosaurus clearing in order to maintain a mosaic of open areas and early successional forest that will favor a great number of wildlife species. The openings will also serve to maintain the blueberry barrens for public picking, as well as preserve the amazing views of Lake Winnipesaukee and the Belknap and Ossipee Mountains.

Our land steward crew preparing for the dedication

Morse Preserve steward Suzanne Marvin points out a landscape feature to steward Jennifer Mayor (Hills Forest) while her granddaughter and pup sit nearby

Also honored at the dedication was David Roberts, who has spent a good deal of his life exploring, mapping, and photographing the Belknaps and Ossipees. On our land steward workday, we erected an interpretive display showing the different peaks that are visible from Morse Preserve, which is in honor of Dave's work and generosity. If you want to check out some of Dave's photographs of mountains in this area, click here. The mountain profile sign we installed had to be affixed to bare granite bedrock, so it was quite the challenge to get in the ground. Thanks to a rock drill obtained by Jason for the day, we were able to get it done in time!

Drilling into granite to get the interpretive display sign up (photo: W.Weisiger)

Dave Roberts (left) with his friend Glenn Lush, standing in front of the new mountain profile display on the top of Pine Mountain.

SCA Work Crew on SPNHF Lands

The Forest Society was lucky enough to be awarded another Recreational Trails Grant this year, making it the fourth year in a row that we are able to hire a Student Conservation Association (SCA) work crew to tackle trail projects on our lands. The six-person crews do all sorts of work across the state in their year-long commitment to SCA New Hampshire, from conservation projects to outreach to environmental education in local schools. On the 20 day Forest Society hitch, this particular crew started at Cooper Cedar Woods in New Durham, completing a trail relocation and over 200 feet of bog bridging. Cooper Cedar Woods is such an interesting place to take a walk, as the trail skirts a state-threatened (and very prehistoric looking) Atlantic White Cedar swamp, but for years the trail has been a bit confusing to follow and very wet in stretches. Not anymore thanks to the recent efforts of the SCA crew and our land stewards for the property, Dan and Dianne Monahan. The trail is now well-marked and much more accessible, so we hope it will see lots of local use in the future.

Dan & Dianne Monahan @ Cooper Cedar Woods, checking in on the crew

The crew's next stop was Gap Mountain in Troy and Jaffrey. Here they worked on a very steep degraded section of trail that at some time in the past had been fortified by huge creosoted railroad ties. These were all undercut, eroding, or washed out entirely, so the crew had a busy time pulling them out and re-setting them, as well as cutting and peeling new logs to increase the number of steps and reduce the erosion problem here.

Newly reset steps at Gap Mountain (photo: H.Lindquist)

Finally, the crew moved over to Gap Mountain's bigger sister, Mount Monadnock. They worked about half way up the mountain (a good 45 minute hike in with tools) on the Marlboro Trail, creating new stone staircases and creating an elevated walking surface (rustic bog bridges and step stones) on an especially soggy stretch of trail. This was the most challenging project, especially the rock stair work, as there is not much soil to work with and the terrain is extremely steep here. But, true to form, the crew puzzled out the best ways to tackle each problem area and left the area much more hiker-friendly than it started out. Thanks to our 2011 SCA Crew and to all the stewards who checked in on their progress and worked along side them this year! Wonderful job!

Bog bridges and step stones on the Marlboro Trail

Backyard Collective!

The Conservation Alliance (CA) is a group of outdoor industry businesses that have banded together and pooled their "membership dues" to distribute money in the form of grants to worthy environmental organizations. The group was founded in 1989 by outdoor industry giants like REI, The North Face, Kelty and Patagonia, and today it disburses about $1 million to projects across the country that protect wild lands where people recreate. Employees of Conservation Alliance member companies also get their hands dirty now and then for a day of environmental volunteerism to benefit their local communities, which they call a "Backyard Collective."

The Forest Society was a direct beneficiary of a large Backyard Collective that took place recently involving employees from Eastern Mountain Sports, Nemo Equipment, Jetboil and other outdoor businesses in the Northeast. A group of hearty volunteers gathered at the McCabe Forest in Antrim to help construct a trail from our new trailhead on Route 202 to the existing trail system. Four footbridges were also built during this workday, to span small drainages along the trail. Forest Society land stewards and a handful of staff were there to organize and lead the volunteer teams, and an amazing amount of work got done in just a short time. Following the trail project, a pizza party was held at EMS headquarters in Peterborough, and more than 100 volunteers gathered to celebrate the success of different Backyard Collective projects that had taken place earlier that day. Here is a link to the story on the Conservation Alliance's blog!

Bird Survey Work

Land Steward Brett Hillman has a been doing some interesting volunteer work for the Forest Society this summer as part of his gradutate coursework in Conservation Biology at Antioch University New England. He has been conducting surveys of breeding birds at two Forest Society reservations where there is significant early successional habitat: the Morse Preserve in Alton Bay, and Harmon Preserve in Freedom. Early successional habitats such as grasslands, pine barrens, and shrub/scrub areas provide important nesting habitat for some of the state's declining bird populations, such as Eastern Towhee, Golden- and Blue-Winged Warblers, Field Sparrows, and Bobolinks. New Hampshire is, percentage-wise, the second most forested state in the nation (behind Maine) and as old pasture and field land has reverted to forest over the last century, we are at risk of losing some of the wildlife that depend upon open areas.

Early Successional Habitat at Morse Preserve (photo: C.Deegan)

Harmon Preserve and Morse Preserve contain very different habitat types (Harmon is a pine barrens natural community while Morse contains old fields and a former comercially-managed blueberry operation) but both will require considerable active management on the part of the Forest Society if we are to maintain the early successional habitats here. In both locations we are considering controlled burns to re-establish natural communities - in the case of the pine barrens, this community actually depends upon fire in order for the pitch pine to regenerate successfully. The baseline bird surveys that Brett is conducting for us will help us determine which species are currently using the properties, which can be compared with future surveys conducted following any management prescriptions.

A big thank-you to Brett for doing this survey work on his own time! Brett also has a blog about New England's natural evironment, so check it out in the links section of this blog. For his post on bird work at Harmon and Morse Preserves click here.

Thank You SPNHF Volunteers!

(photo: J.Savage)

The annual Summer Volunteer Appreciation BBQ was held on September 1st this year. The weather was nice and warm despite the September date, and we were able to celebrate on the Forest Society's back deck with its views of the Merrimack River floodplain and state house in the distance. This event is held each year to recognize and celebrate all of the amazing and varied work that the Forest Society's volunteers do for the organization each year. From land stewards working on their adopted reservations, to green building tour leaders, to the "stuff it" club that helps with getting out large mailings... all our volunteers are essential to the success of the organization in meeting its goals.

SPNHF Forester Wendy Weisiger talks with steward Kamal Nath (photo: J.Savage)

This year we honored Rhoda Mitchell with the Trish Churchill Volunteer of the Year Award, presented annually to a volunteer who has given exceptional service over the past year or years. Rhoda has been caring for the many plants inside the Conservation Center, quietly, expertly, andpersistently, for more than a decade! We were glad to be able to recognize her contribution after so many years of service, and hope that she will continue to have a hand in making the Conservation Center a more beautiful place to work and conduct the business of land conservation for many years to come.

Here's the press release from the Forest Society's website about Rhoda's award if you're interested!

President/Forester Jane Difley presenting the Volunteer of the Year Award to Rhoda Mitchell (photo: J.Savage)

Rhoda with one of her "charges" (photo: J.Savage)

Dragonfly Walk

Twenty adventurous people joined me and my husband Andy Deegan (Ausbon-Sargent Land Preservation Trust) on a dragonfly walk at the Forest Society’s Langenau Forest in Wilmot last week. In our spare time we volunteer for the New Hampshire Dragonfly Survey (NHDS), an effort coordinated by NH Audubon, UNH Cooperative Extension, and NH Fish & Game that seeks to catalog as many of the dragonfly species that exist in NH within a 5-year time period. One of the sites where we collect data is SPNHF's Langenau Forest in Wilmot (a little known and underappreciated little gem of a forest with plenty of well-maintained hiking trails (thanks to steward Dave Cook) and a small wildlife pond). We decided to host a dragonfly walk for the public at Langenau Forest, partly because we're very familiar with what's there, and partly to acquaint local residents with this conservation property! Participants in the walk learned about dragonfly identification, biology and behavior, as well as why conservation of land and aquatic habitats is important for the perpetuation of the state’s dragonfly populations. Many aerial nets were passed around during the walk to allow people the opportunity to try catching and releasing “dragons” in the field. More than a dozen species were caught, inspected, and released by the group... including several not before identified in the town of Wilmot! Very cool!

Field Trip 101

The Forest Society held a workshop in conjunction with UNH Cooperative Extension staff last month entitled “Field Trip 101: You Can Lead a Guided Walk!” This workshop was the result of a brainstorming session between our two organizations surrounding how to connect New Hampshire residents with the conservation lands in their local communities. Many people don’t realize that there are conservation properties open to the public within a short drive of their own home. Giving volunteers the tools and confidence to advertise, plan and implement guided “nature walks” on these lands is a great way to raise local awareness about conservation lands open for recreation and nature study. As people realize how these lands benefit them directly, they will be more likely to support and help fund conservation projects in the future. The 25 participants in the Field Trip 101 workshop agreed to lead their own guided walks within 6 months in exchange for receiving the training. The workshop was a great success as participants left highly energized and in possession of many new tools and techniques. Look for similar workshops from the Forest Society and UNH Cooperative Extension in the future if you’d like to get involved!