Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy

It’s wonderful when teachers provide experiences to children that open them up to new ideas and broader perspectives.  That’s just what happened when local teacher, Natalie Pien, took her students to Limestone Branch stream for some stream monitoring. 

Two of her students were so moved by this experience and all that they’ve learned about the importance of riparian buffers that they created a YouTube video.  You can watch that video here: Smarts Mill Middle School Students Speak Out for Riparian Buffers

There’s been a lot of information in the papers on the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act  - some of it accurate, some of it not.

The Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act is something we need here in Loudoun and we need it now. Over the coming weeks we’ll be posting more information that you can use.

A great resource available right now is the website for Loudoun’s Clean Streams Coalition, of which Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy is a part.  On this website you’ll find information on what the Act means for Loudoun, a history of the Act in Virginia and how it’s been applied in other counties like Fairfax, links to additional resources on streams and buffers, and more.

Additionally, members of our Board of Supervisors and County staff are out and about doing community sessions to hear citizen concerns, debunk myths, and answer citizen questions. 

I encourage you to learn more about this Act. Our streams across Loudoun need help. We’ve been monitoring our local streams for 14 years along with other organizations in Loudoun and we have the data to show that they are in trouble. We also know that preserving and restoring the buffers along streams helps improve water quality and the overall health of our environment.

Goose and Catoctin Creek – Recognition of 40th Anniversary of Scenic River Program

The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors has adopted a resolution to recognize the Goose and Catoctin Creek with regards to their scenic river status in the context of the 40th anniversary celebration in 2010.  The recognition will take place at the Board Meeting Room on Monday, 5/3, at 6 pm.

There will be a display of photographs from Dept of Conservation and Recreation and a slideshow of photo’s submitted by: Mark Jeffries, Carol Clay-Ward, Chris VanVlack, Versar and others.  These may be viewed at http://www.flickr.com/photos/41631858@N05/sets/72157623804736704/

Learn more about the Virginia’s Scenic River Program at: http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/recreational_planning/srmain.shtml

Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy offers many opportunities for citizens to participate in nature programs that promote the collection of important environmental data across the county.

Stream Monitoring

Interested in what you might find in a stream near you?  Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy works alongside the Loudoun Watershed Watch in monitoring our local streams for all types of bacterial and invertebrate life. Sign up on our Stream Monitoring page to join a stream team in the search and identification of species integral to monitoring the quality of Loudoun’s streams. Requires a commitment of 3-4 hours at each of three monitoring sessions between the months of April and November.

Bluebird Nestbox Monitoring

Bluebirds, some of our most beloved songbirds for their beautiful colors and cheerful songs, need our help to thrive.  Join LWC’s Nestbox Monitoring program and observe the nesting behavior of this magnificent species, while at the same time providing valuable census information on the local population of bluebirds. We have trails across the county – from Leesburg to Ashburn and Sterling to Neersville, Purcellville and Waterford. Requires about 2 hours per month from April through August on a public trail or you can register your home nestboxes with us and report your data. Visit our Bluebird Nestbox Monitoring page to become a part of this rewarding experience.

Amphibian Monitoring

Amphibians are wonderful natural indicators of the health of wetlands and forests. In order to gauge just how well these fascinating creatures thrive in Loudoun County, Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy launched the Loudoun Amphibian Monitoring Program (LAMP). Help monitor the health of our amphibious population through frog and toad call surveys, amphibian site surveys, and migration mapping. Time commitment can be as little as a few hours in each of the four monitoring windows from February through July or more if you really get into it. To volunteer for any of these subsets of LAMP, or for more information, visit our Amphibian Monitoring page.

Bird Atlas

Participate in Loudoun County’s unique bird atlas program, in which volunteers track and record the species and numbers of birds found in Loudoun. The county is divided into 75 blocks, and each of these 10 square-mile blocks is assigned to a different individual or group to ensure countywide coverage. The atlas has been an ongoing project since 2009, and is set for publication in 2014. Volunteer while you can – more eyes on the ground mean better data for the atlas!  You can sign up as a helper for a block or a block owner, or just sign up to report incidental sightings. All birds count so this is a great activity for people of all experience levels. Time commitment can be as much as you like.  For more information, please visit our Bird Atlas page.

Susan Buckley, Loudoun County Supervisor for the Sugarland Run District, sent information about this cleanup event that’s been planned for next weekend (April 10) and we wanted to help get the word out. 

Algonkian Park is a terrific home to all sorts of wildlife – from salamanders, skinks and frogs to butterflies, birds and mammals of all sorts. I love going there for nature walks and being delighted by the wilds of nature — but have to say, I often find myself carrying a trash bag to pick up litter along the trails. Not sure why people litter but this is a great event to help clean it up (and teach our kids to respect nature and not litter).

Here’s the information from Susan:

The Rotary Club of Sterling, Algonkian Regional Park, the  Potomac Heritage Trail Association and my Office are sponsoring a Cleanup Day at Algonkian Regional Park, where we plan to clean up the shoreline of the Potomac River in addition to the shores of the Sugarland Run stream, a mile of which flows through the park.

I would like to invite you to join us. We will be working all morning, so feel free to come and go as suits your schedule. You are welcome to distribute the attached flyer to your friends.

As you know, sooner or later, the trash and debris flow downstream via the Sugarland Run through Algonkian Regional Park, into the Potomac and into the Chesapeake Bay. This is our chance to do a little something to help the environment in our own backyard.

On August 8th, four of us worked on the shrubs and trees that were planted along the tributary that flows into the Catoctin on the western edge of the Phillips Farm.  We were pleased to find the trees and shrubs that were planted on April 22 thriving. 

To keep them healthy we first hand weeded around the plants and then put mesh guards around them to keep the deer, rabbits, and rodents from gnawing on the stems and eating the leaves.  We managed to complete about half the trees and shrubs there but need to go back and finish the reminder there as well as work on the trees and shrubs that are near the village. That’s where we could use your help!

On Wednesday, August 19th, from 9:00 to noon we will complete this project if enough volunteers can come on out and lend a hand. 

We’ll meet at the mill and put mesh guards around the plants which are experiencing some deer, rodent, and rabbit damage and remove some of the aggressive invasive alien plants in the planting area.  We also plan to so some hand weeding around the trees and shrubs so if you have some favorite weeding tools please bring them and work gloves along.  A mallet to hammer the mesh strakes in would also be useful.  One group will finish the work along the tributary while the others will work on the trees and shrubs closer to the village.

We’ll also water the new plants with our new pump if it doesn’t rain between now and then.

Please come out and help if you can and leave when you need to. If you are planning to come, please let Joe Coleman know: 540-554-2542 or jcoleman@loudounwildlife.org

Thanks for your help in making this restoration a success!

Six of us went out stream monitoring today at the Phillips Farm in Waterford where the south fork of Catoctin Creek runs through.  The water was 69 degrees and we had a slight breeze blowing which made it a great day to be out stream monitoring.  This team is led by Helen Van Ryzin, who was certified last spring in the Virginia Save our Streams (VA SOS) protocol, which is the protocol used by Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy.

We set up our table under a nice tree, had our sorting trays all ready, and then went out into the water to collect our critters.  It’s such a fun process to be involved with – after doing the collections in the net, we brought it back over to the table and the excitement begins –  it feels like Christmas as we spread the net out and inspect what we caught. I was hoping for a caddisfly all wrapped up in it’s stone house but we didn’t find any of them today. We did have a significant number of net spinners, a bunch of riffle beetles, lots of mayflies, a clam, and I believe some damselfly larvae too.

I’ve posted photos to our facebook page.  Anyone can come out and learn how to monitor a Loudoun stream. It’s really quite fascinating to look at the aquatic insects and understand how their presence (or lack of presence) tells the story of water quality. They’re really beautiful in their own ways with their feathery gills and interesting legs and tails. It’s a whole new world of Loudoun’s nature and environment to learn about and explore.

Here in Loudoun, we are fortunate to have a lot of streams that run through our yards, neighborhoods and wild places. For some fun, you try your hand at the Loudoun Streams wordsearch puzzle. Then, come on out and join us in stream monitoring - its a great time outdoors and really interesting to see all the different creatures that live in our streams.

More puzzles on Loudoun nature and wildlife can be found on our Educational Resources page.

By all accounts, the tree planting along the Town Branch stream on Saturday was a great success!  Gem Bingol from Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) kicked off the event with an overview of the project, talking about the stream and how the riparian buffer will help improve water quality and describing the task that we would undertake of planting 204 native trees and shrubs and 144 native perennial wildflower plants.

She then turned it over to Jeff Wolinski, the consulting ecologist and wetlands expert, who helped plan and select the plant species that we’d be planting. He selected a great diversity of plants for this project which will not only benefit a wide variety of wildlife but also provide a more natural look to the restoration.

The tree and shrub species include 2 species of dogwoods, elderberry, 2 species of serviceberry, ironwood, hazelnut, river birch, hackberry, black gum, red maple, red bud, 3 species of oaks, and arrowwood. Among the perennials, they include monarda (Wild Bergamot) , eupatorium (Joe Pye), New York ironweed, coreopsis, senna, culver root, blue indigo, mountain mint, gayfeather, switchgrass, indiangrass, and blue vervain.

After giving a quick overview of the plants, Jeff demonstrated how to plant the trees and talked about fertilizer as well as the interrelationship between a beneficial fungus that grows in the soil and the plant roots.

Thankfully, Jeff, along with LWC’s Craig Himelright and Rocky Fera and a few others others spent Friday preparing for the planting by auguring the holes for the trees, getting the trees in place at each spot, bringing out the mulch and doing other preparations. This pre-work made the planting very straightforward, as volunteers could focus on planting the trees and mulching around them rather than digging the holes.

The work went quickly with over 50 volunteers from Piedmont Environmental Council, Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy and an energetic boy scout troop 998 jumping right in. Volunteers came prepared with work gloves for getting hands on with the planting. Shovels were provided to help break up soils and put it back around the trees as they were settled into their holes. With the rain that we had the last few days, the ground was very wet and a number of holes had filled with water over night making this a rather muddy but good planting. As the designated photographer for the event, I think I was the only one who left the event without muddy pants….not that I don’t enjoy playing in the dirt too

Eight people worked until 4pm doing the final wrap-up of putting deer protectors around the trees and watering the plants.

And, I’d be remiss in not calling out Neely Law from the Center for Watershed Protection for her great work. Neely was instrumental as she got the required permissions along with the Leesburg Town Council’s support for the project, including  their agreement that the planting area would be a no-mow area so it could be a viable riparian buffer.
 
Thanks to all who supported this event! It was a great team effort and a wonderful showing of our care for the community! We met new people, shared stories and put in place a beautiful riparian habitat that will benefit our wildlife and provide enjoyment to all who live in and visit Leesburg.

More photos will be  posted to our Loudoun Wildlife facebook page.

There’s a wonderful little stream called Town Branch that runs though Leesburg and many of us may not even notice that it’s there.

It runs along Catoctin Circle near the Village Lanes Bowling Center and is the site of a really great habitat restoration project that is happening this Saturday.

Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) is leading this project and we are supporting it. In the future, there will be a walking trail that runs through here and we are also talking about doing some additional habitat restoration for the amphibian population that use the vernal pools there too.

This is a great event for the whole family. The holes will be dug in advance so the main activity will be to plant the trees and shrubs that have been put out. Here is the flier for the event so you can read more about it and the important impacts that this habitat restoration will have our our local water.

I’m sure the wildlife will be pleased by the restoration.  When I went out to take some “before” photos, a Kingfisher, which is likely nesting in the area, came by to protest my presence. It landed just a few feet from me on the dumpster and made its rattling call. It was likely hunting in the stream for small fish.

The tree buffer that is planted here will help restore the water quality of this stream, giving great food sources for birds like this kingfisher. Kingfishers nest in burrows along stream banks – perhaps one day, the kingfishers will even nest in the banks of this stream!