DARIEN'S ENCHANTED FOREST
Check out the links below to recent DLT articlehttp://darien.patch.com/articles/dariens-enchanted-forest
Selleck's Lake and DLT trustee, Chris Filmer, is an active steward of Friends of SelleckWoods
BLUE BIRDS MAKE COMEBACK in LAND TRUST MEADOWS
Above Left: Male Bluebird checks out the nesting box
Above Right: A Bluebird box (on the left inside the red circle) near the barn at Mather Meadow East.
In late May, a pair of Bluebirds immediately responded to the new nesting boxes created by a partnership between DHS students, the Darien Land Trust (DLT) and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (CT DEP)
Den Frelinghuysen, co-chair of Stewardship at the Darien Land Trust, reported that he got a nice surprise as soon as he finished attaching the Bluebird house to a stake in Mather Meadow. “I was walking towards my car to go home when I looked over my shoulder and saw an exotic flash of blue as two Bluebirds checked it out.”
The Bluebirds claimed the box that day, built a nest and are now feeding caterpillars and other insects to their fledglings.
Benefits for All
There is a happy outcome for all parties involved: The Wildlife Division of the CT DEP, which provided the wood and a design for the Bluebird houses as part of its initiative to support birds in need of conservation, fulfilled its mission.
Three meadows owned by the Darien Land Trust now boast birdhouses enjoyed by Bluebirds, Chickadees, Wrens and Swallows–and the well-protected baby birds are thriving.
And four high school students (John Bolton, Maggie Close, John Forlivio and Tucker Burton) in the DHS Technical Education woodworking course, supervised by Leon Strecker and Woody Spurgeon, learned how to make nesting boxes.
CT. DEP Wildlife Division Boosts Bluebirds Over Four Decades
The CT DEP’s Wildlife Division has been providing materials to build Bluebird nest boxes for 40 years as part of the Bluebird Restoration Project. That project began in the early 1970s when bird enthusiasts, ornithologists and government agencies feared that the Eastern Bluebird, whose beauty captures the public imagination, was on the verge of becoming an endangered species—along with many other birds named in the Endangered Species Act of 1973. They knew the number of bluebirds had declined since the late 1800s in large part because changing land use patterns and increasing urbanization had diminished the availability of nesting cavities and large open fields needed for Bluebirds to raise their families safely. Thanks to the nesting boxes, the public has helped increase the Bluebird population throughout Connecticut, enabling this much-loved species to make something of a comeback.
Final Benefit
Perhaps most importantly, however, the local collaboration between three partners has shown the potential for working with different groups to further the health of the broader ecosystem that includes plants, insects, birds and humans—even if each entity seems to contribute in only a small way.
Wildflowers in Brendan's meadow
We are starting to see a variety of flowers in Brendan's meadow. This is the first stage of our meadow creation project that will take three years to complete. The mission of the Darien Land Trust is to preserve and protect open space in Darien. The Trust's development of a wildflower meadow at 77 Nearwater Lane is just one example of their efforts.
http://darien.patch.com/articles/nature-blooms-in-brendans-meadow
DLT Trustees, Chris Filmer and Den Frelinghuysen, worked with landscape designer Larry Weaner to create a habitat-enriched environment for this special parcel of preserved land with views of Long Island Sound. Please visit the above link to read an article written by Nancy Burton from Darien.Patch.org and enjoy a fall walk in Brendan's Meadow.
