The James River Buffer Program, established in 2019, pays for 100 percent of the project costs for qualifying landowners who restore or create forested stream buffers in the area of eligibility. Once an application is accepted, program staff conduct a site assessment and discuss the landowner’s priorities. A buffer design is created for the landowner’s approval, and then trees are planted in the early spring or late fall. The buffer must be maintained for at least 15 years. VOF easement owners may amend their easement to permanently protect the buffer, and the program will cover those costs, as well.
One VOF easement owner has already signed up. Warren Byrd and Susan Nelson planted 424 seedlings along Spring Creek on their Albemarle County easement this past fall. Among the 15 native species planted were buttonbush, elderberry, persimmon and red maple.
“The site for the riparian buffer planting along Spring Creek is in an old field that was once a grazing pasture,” they explain. “Because the creek banks in the old field are so severely eroded now and sediment is washing down stream, planting a riparian buffer we felt would be an effective and environmentally sustainable solution, filling a serious gap in the existing forested edge along the stream corridor.”
Anne Marie Roberts of the James River Association coordinated the work at Spring Creek Farm, with help from the Virginia Forestry and Wildlife Group and Conservation Services, Inc.
“The stream section that we planted at Spring Creek Farm was especially important to plant, since it has little or no streamside forest and has actively eroding stream banks,” she says. “In this particular case, planting seedlings next to the banks will reduce sedimentation into the stream and increase water quality for aquatic life by providing future shade, as well as a food source.”
Since 2019, more than 81,000 trees have been planted on 228 acres in the Middle James watershed. Work in the Upper James began in 2020 and will be coordinated primarily by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
Becky Conway brings a wealth of outdoor education experience home to Virginia.
Community-based conservation is at the heart of public programming at VOF’s Bull Run Mountains Preserve in Fauquier and Prince William counties. The preserve’s new outreach assistant, Becky Conway, is helping to fulfill that mission by bringing what she’s learned engaging with communities all over the world home to Virginia.
With degrees in environmental science from the University of Mary Washington and George Mason University (GMU), Conway credits an undergraduate trip to the Galapagos Islands with sparking her interest in linking people with the natural world.
“It was the first time I’d left the country outside of family trips,” she says. “I learned about critical threats and possible solutions from communities who lived on the islands.” Hikes with local guides inspired her to think about the challenges and rewards of environmental education outside of the classroom.
She took two more international trips while she pursued her master’s at GMU. Both helped seal her interest in promoting connections between people and nature. During a trip to Peru, she learned from Maijuna community residents of the Amazon rainforest about the indigenous practices they use to help preserve and sustain it, and a two-week trip to Kenya inspired her master’s research on strategies for engaging youth with wildlife conservation.
Now, she is bringing her passion for environmental education to the communities VOF serves around Bull Run Mountains and discovering more about her home turf. “I had never been to the preserve before my two-hour interview hike,” she says. Since then, she’s been exploring so she can learn about what the preserve has to offer and share its many resources with visitors.
She plans to get started by doing guided hikes with families to see what sparks their interest. “Eventually I’ll be teaching them, but first they will actually teach me about what I can do for this community,” she says.
Conway will lead a “Sweetheart Hike” in February, sharing stories of salamanders’ epic search for their mates along with the preserve’s other romantic tales.
Her first public programming, “Sweetheart Hike,” is already scheduled for 10:00 am on February 13th. From the love lives of salamanders centered on vernal pools, to the marriages (five in all) of Hampton Cole, one of Bull Run Mountain’s historic residents, the preserve holds stories Conway is excited to share.
Her work will also include increasing engagement on the preserve’s social media accounts and posting to the preserve blog. “The hope is that if people can’t make it out here, or even if they aren’t necessarily outdoor enthusiasts, they can still learn about the preserve.”
Conway stresses that community engagement is one of the most effective ways of ensuring conversation work continues. “I love passing on my passion for the outdoors to the next generation and getting them excited about what lives outside in the world with them. It’s a seed that’s planted, and that hopefully is nurtured so that it could bloom when they grow up.”
To keep up with public programming at the preserve, visit our Facebook and Instagram pages.
An easement in James City County adds 1,241 acres of wooded and open marshland to protected lands along the Chickahominy, a State Scenic River.
The Virginia Outdoors Foundation protected 10,300 new acres of open space in 34 counties and cities last year—a rate of more than one acre every hour.
Most projects protected family farms and forests in all corners of the state. The largest project was a 1,211-acre property in James City County that protects pristine waterfowl habitat along the Chickahominy River.
Several projects created new or expanded opportunities for public recreation, including a 39-acre property with trails along the Maury River in the City of Lexington, the 3-acre site of the Urbanna Oyster Festival in Middlesex County, and a 5-acre parcel in the City of Petersburg that helps to complete the Appomattox River Trail.
VOF also awarded $4,417,595 in grants for conservation projects from its Forest CORE Fund and Preservation Trust Fund programs. These grants aided in the acquisition and protection of 5,839 acres of open space mostly for public use and funded the creation and restoration of trails, stream buffers, and outdoors-oriented community centers. Forest CORE projects completed in 2020 include the restoration and enhancement of Pittsylvania’s Wayside Park, the acquisition of land in Charlotte County for a new State Forest, the expansion of Chestnut Ridge Preserve in Giles County, and the permanent protection of 243 acres of high-quality forest within the McAfee Knob viewshed, one of the most photographed vistas of the Appalachian Trail.
Since 1966, VOF has protected more than 850,000 acres of open space in 111 counties and cities, making it one of the largest land conservation organizations in the nation.
Piratebush (Buckleya distichophylla) is a globally rare shrub that thrives at Poor Mountain Natural Area Preserve near Salem, Virginia. Photo credit: Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation.
The Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation has expanded Poor Mountain Natural Area Preserve in Roanoke County by 394, with support from VOF’s Forest CORE Fund, according to an announcement from the department.
The preserve is now 1,326 acres.
“Poor Mountain Natural Area Preserve is one of Virginia’s great treasures,” DCR Director Clyde Cristman said. “The expansion adds an important buffer along the western edge of the property. As part of the state natural area preserve system, these forested lands are permanently protected from fragmentation and incompatible use.”
Located about a mile south of Salem city limits, Poor Mountain Natural Area Preserve is at the center of a large unfragmented forest. Within the understory of this forest is the world’s largest known population of a globally rare shrub called piratebush (Buckleya distichophylla).
”Poor Mountain Natural Area Preserve now protects more than half of a 2,000-acre forested core, in a landscape with increasing threat of forest fragmentation,” DCR Virginia Natural Heritage Program Director Jason Bulluck said. “In a time when 70 percent of the world’s remaining forested areas are less than 1 kilometer from a forest edge, Poor Mountain will only become more exceptional and invaluable. It is exceedingly important that land protection efforts preserve multiple ecosystem services, from biodiversity and rare species habitat, to clean water and air.”
The preserve’s forested slopes constitute a portion of the headwaters of four watersheds that flow into the Roanoke River. Protecting and managing these forested headwaters for biodiversity benefits the river’s water quality, as plant roots and soil fungi filter out excess nutrients and guard against erosion, said the department. Protected forest also helps to mitigate the impact of urban heat islands in developed areas through evapotranspiration, the process by which trees draw water from their roots to their leaves. This process has a cooling effect on air temperature in the Roanoke Valley, the most developed area in Virginia’s Blue Ridge.
Funding for the expansion came from a grant awarded through the Forest CORE Fund — a component of VOF’s TERRA program, which administers funds resulting from legal and regulatory actions involving Virginia’s natural resources. The Forest CORE Fund was established with $15 million received by the Commonwealth of Virginia to mitigate for forest fragmentation caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
Poor Mountain Natural Area Preserve was established in the early 1990s through The Nature Conservancy’s Partners in Conservation project, the 1992 Virginia Parks and Natural Areas Bond, and the Open Space Recreation and Conservation Fund.
The preserve has 4 miles of hiking trails that range from relatively easy to steep and strenuous. The parking area is limited to 10 vehicles. Visitors who arrive to find a full parking area are asked to wait for a space to open or come back at another time. Parking is permitted in designated spaces only.
Photo by Irvine T. Wilson/Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation.
More than 800 acres, mostly in Giles County, have been purchased by the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, protecting many forest species, including chestnut oaks that are over 300 years old, and expanding an existing natural area preserve within an important ecological forest core.
Funds for the acquisition were awarded from the Forest CORE Fund — a component of the Virginia Outdoors Foundation’s TERRA program.
The land will be managed to protect old-growth trees and to promote nature-based carbon sequestration through proforestation — a practice of growing existing forests to their ecological potential — with the possibility of reintroducing the once dominant American chestnut (Castanea dentata) and another decimated species, the butternut tree (Juglans cinerea).
The acquisition expands the 233-acre Chestnut Ridge Natural Area Preserve by 587 acres and brings the privately owned preserve under DCR ownership.
Most of the acreage is in far western Giles County with a small section located in neighboring Bland County.
All 820 acres are now permanently protected as part of the Virginia Natural Area Preserve System, which is managed by the Virginia Natural Heritage Program at DCR.
There are no public access facilities, parking areas or established trails on the property, but DCR will explore the feasibility of public access in the future.
“The acquisition and protection of additional lands at Chestnut Ridge Natural Area Preserve sets the stage for projects aimed at protecting and restoring Virginia’s native biodiversity and landscapes that keep Virginia resilient to a changing climate,” DCR Director Clyde E. Cristman said.
Bob and Darlinda Gilvary, owners of Gilginia Tree Farm LLC, are the sellers. They purchased the property in the late 1990s and together managed the forest, selecting and harvesting individual trees themselves, always careful to leave the oldest trees and a variety of other mature healthy stock for regeneration.
“Years ago, my husband and I decided to keep the whole land in forest,” said Darlinda Gilvary, who lives in a cottage near the preserve. “We did it to protect the environment and to protect water quality. It is important to us to leave it in good hands.”
As the preserve’s name suggests, American chestnut once comprised a major component of this forest, and evidence remains of its former abundance. Chestnut may have accounted for nearly 25% of trees across the Appalachian region, historically, but populations were wiped out by chestnut blight fungus in the early 1900s. As blight-resistant chestnuts are developed, DCR may restore this iconic species to the preserve.
Butternut, or white walnut, also was widespread across much of eastern North America but has declined by an estimated 58% since the 1980s due to a fungal disease called butternut canker. Scientists have found evidence that disease-resistant butternut trees may occur at Chestnut Ridge Natural Area Preserve.
The Oyster Festival hosts activities for all ages on the property being protected.
The Chesapeake Bay’s largest and oldest oyster festival will have a space to call home for future generations, thanks to a partnership between festival organizers and the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF).
Earlier this year, a private landowner put up for sale a 3.5-acre parcel in the Town of Urbanna that had hosted vendors and other activities for much of the festival’s 64 years.
“We could not lose access to that property,” said Joe Heyman, chairman of the Urbanna Oyster Festival Foundation. “We conducted a study that estimates the festival generates nearly $4 million in tourism for a four-county region, and that parcel alone generates about $40,000 each year for the festival.”
The Oyster Man Parade.
At first, the Festival Foundation estimated it would need five years to raise enough funds for the property, which had a price of $140,000. “Then we reached out to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation and realized this project could be a good fit with their program to expand public access to open space,” said Heyman, “so we applied for a grant.”
VOF awarded the project a $140,000 grant from its Preservation Trust Fund in exchange for ensuring that the property could never be developed or closed to the public. The deal was finalized in early December.
“We are thrilled that we could help to secure the site for the festival going forward,” says VOF’s Estie Thomas, who worked on the project. “The Urbanna Oyster Festival is not just an economic engine for the region each fall, but it is also an event that connects tens of thousands of people to the outdoors and the Chesapeake Bay each year.”
Carnival games at the festival.
The Urbanna Oyster Festival, held the first weekend in November, is home to the Virginia State Oyster Shucking Championship, as well as the Fireman’s Parade, which includes more than 80 units from all over the state. The event also features Virginia wineries and breweries, as well as a historic waterfront exhibit with displays from the Marine Science Legacy Program. It attracts an estimated 55,000 attendees annually. Learn more at https://www.urbannaoysterfestival.com.
Emmett Snead and his family have been selling cut-your-own Christmas trees on his farm 10 minutes outside of Fredericksburg since the mid-1980s. Five days a week, Wednesdays through Sundays, from black Friday through December 20, the farm averages 386 visitors a day.
That sounds like a lot of trees, but as Emmett tells it, “The trees are secondary. Only about 10% of people come to buy trees. The rest come to enjoy the farm.”
The Sneads aren’t exactly sure when the farm became a destination.
Snead’s offers sunflower and berry picking in the summer months.
There had always been a roadside stand where they sell their namesake asparagus and other produce. One autumn the family started offering pick-your-own pumpkins, and eventually they added berries and sunflowers in the summer and Christmas trees in the winter.
But daughter Emmie can point to the exact spot where it all started: a single concrete slab near the farmhouse. “People started coming on to the farm just to wander around in the summer, so we put out some tricycles and all sorts of stuff there for kids to play on.”
Soon, she says, they were re-purposing the nearby greenhouse into a learning shed, where seasonal information about how things grow on the farm is posted for kids to learn from all year long. Then they added a second play area, and then a gigantic sand pile where kids can climb, dig holes and build castles.
“It snowballed,” she says. “Now we’re open every season, with trails that go into the forest behind the back field, picnic areas, more play areas along the creek, plus the mountain slides and the pine forest maze.”
There is also a hay barn with rope swings for more opportunities to play. As Emmie puts it, “There are so many places to explore; kids can tap into their inner wanderlust.”
Several play areas give kids an outlet and parents a break.
And then there are the animals. The farm provides visitors with the rare opportunity to get close to horses, llamas and sheep. “Horses are a focal point here,” Emmie notes. “People come back to see them over and over again, they learn their names, they build relationships with them.”
Her father underscores the importance of letting people get to know the 266-acre farm. “You’d be surprised how few people have gotten that close to a horse, or any large animal,” says Emmett. “It’s something people want to experience.”
To preserve the possibility for that experience into the future, Emmett protected the farm with an open-space easement held by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation in 2011.
Emmie, who works at Mojave Desert Land Trust in California but
Dogs on a leash are welcome at the farm, where there is plenty of space to roam.
returns when she can to help her parents out, believes that the outdoor experiences the farm provides are more important now than ever. “I’ve seen it grow from that little concrete slab to what you see here now, and it’s always been a resource, but like so many things during a pandemic, it’s become essential.”
For information on Snead’s Asparagus Farm’s pick-your-own programs, joining the CSA, and visiting hours, visit the farm’s website or Facebook page.
Jeff and Ali Carithers are restoring some of Shenandoah Valley's grassland past at Spring House Farms, whose summertime fields bloom in purple coneflower and blazing star, among other Virginia natives.
When Jeff and Ali Carithers fell in love with Spring House Farms in Shenandoah County, curb appeal had nothing to do with it: There were hundreds of old tires littering the 72 acres, patches of bare dirt, a double-wide trailer, and not much else.
But there was potential.
Beyond the abandoned hayfields lay stunning views of Massanutten Mountain and the Blue Ridge—strong selling points to the Iowa couple. Accustomed to the flat landscapes of the Midwest, “The contours of the land really appealed to us,” Ali says. “And we both like tackling big projects.” So they bought the property and set to work.
As they spoke with their new neighbors and did some research, the Carithers were surprised to discover that Iowa and Shenandoah Valley once had a landscape in common: wild grassland. In the Midwest, these flat, wide-open spaces are called prairies, and most have been converted to agricultural land. In the Valley, where rolling grasslands speckled with trees are more commonly called savannas, agricultural conversion and reforestation have infringed on them, as well, so that only a handful of fragmented areas—ones where it is impossible to change the land through cultivation—remain.
The Carithers were sold by the views of the Blue Ridge from Spring House.
“You don’t think of prairies when you think of Virginia,” says Jeff. “But my father had done a little 3-acre prairie restoration back in Iowa. Once we understood what used to be here, it made sense to try to bring it back.”
A Lost Landscape
Justin Folks, a biologist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), thinks that most of the land in Virginia used for crops, hay, and pasture today was grassland before the arrival of European colonists in the 17th century. Just a fraction remains. “It may be less than .0001 percent,” he says.
Folks provides technical assistance to landowners who wish to manage their property as habitat for quail, songbirds, pollinators, and other animals that make early successional landscapes their home. These landscapes are characterized by native warm-season grasses and forbs (aka wildflowers)—plants that are the first to naturally regenerate after a fire.
Fire, or the lack of it, is another reason for the decline in grassland landscapes in the Commonwealth, says Folks. Native Americans once managed the land with purposely-set fires to maintain a landscape with few trees, “So a lot of land that was maintained as grassland by fire has shifted to forest,” he explains. “Even if we turned all agricultural land back into grassland, it may still be less than what may have been in the Commonwealth before Europeans arrived.”
The 90 species of wildflowers and 11 different grasses that the Carithers have planted on the property provide valuable habitat for birds and other wildlife.
Although grassland and forest do much of the same work in filtering pollutants out of the water supply and reducing erosion, both landscapes are important to maintain because of the diverse types of wildlife they each support. Folks also points out that grassland may be more resilient than forest. Much of its biomass, and the work that it does, is invisible, in the form of roots that can reach up to 12 feet deep. This underground advantage makes grassland more drought resistant and adaptable to changes in climate than forest.
The Role of Private Lands
Considering the benefits to both people and wildlife, grassland restoration is gaining traction among Virginia landowners in the Shenandoah Valley and beyond. Even projects of 2 or 3 acres can go a long way in providing these benefits. Because the birds, bats, and insects that utilize these spaces are highly mobile, they can disperse seeds and pollen from one grassland to another, spreading these unique plants across large areas and increasing biodiversity across the state.
Brent Barriteau is a district conservationist with the NRCS whose territory includes Clarke, Frederick, Shenandoah, and Warren counties. He worked closely with the Carithers on restoring their hayfields to grassland through cost-share programs such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).
Although the Carithers had conservation as their primary goal, “People have all sorts of reasons for doing restoration projects,” he says.
From the late summer months through the winter, the dried seed heads of the wildflowers form “a giant birdfeeder,” Jeff Carithers notes.
Some landowners who produce honey, for example, need fields of wildflowers where the honeybees can forage. Others might have vineyards or orchards where they want to decrease the use of pesticides, so they establish a border around their fields to provide habitat for the beneficial insects that prey on destructive ones.
Barriteau says that in the last 10 years, there have been 31 grassland restoration projects in the four counties he serves. Many of the individual projects were just a few acres, but combined they amounted to 337 acres planted with native wildflowers and native warm-season grasses.
“And it’s not just one cohort of people,” he observes. “It’s across the spectrum. Schools have participated, and private landowners—from retirees to lifelong farmers—who realize the benefit of establishing these plants as excellent habitat for gamebirds and deer.”
Landowners can be awarded up to $1,000 per acre for the conversion of an agricultural field to early successional wildlife habitat through EQIP, which means little to no out-of-pocket expenses. Flower and grass seed costs $300-$400 an acre.
Barriteau emphasizes that grassland habitat and cropland can coexist. “We don’t eliminate a crop for a grassland unless the owner has that conversion in mind. We just try to find the right balance.”
The Carithers, in front of the 18th-century spring house on their property, worked with their NRCS field representative to restore grassland habitat.
The Northern Bobwhite in Working Grasslands Initiative, for example, encourages livestock producers to incorporate warm-season grasses into their grazing system in the summer. Even as the grasses supply livestock with forage, they provide ground-nesting birds such as bobwhite quail with valuable habitat.
“My long-term goal is to work with all landowners who want to establish native plant communities on their property,” says Barriteau. The point, he says, is to “establish as many acres as possible and hope Mother Nature helps distribute the plants outside the original area. Basically, reestablish the native seed bank.”
Support for Landowners
With more than 60 acres in native forbs and warm-season grasses and 40 acres in forest, Spring House Farms has become a resource for local wildlife, and the Carithers have built a home among the wildflowers, with curb appeal to spare. To protect the soils from future development, they placed the property under easement with the Virginia Outdoors Foundation in 2007.
The Carithers used local materials when possible in constructing the house: they gathered the stone from the property, and the posts for the porches came from trees felled by hurricane Isabel. The bell in front of the house came from Jeff’s family farm in Iowa.
The couple has also created a model for others who are interested in reestablishing habitat. In May, they were planning to host other landowners at Spring House for “Get Paid to Go Green,” an event organized by the nonprofit Sustainability Matters. “It’s meant to introduce people to the government programs that can help with this kind of transformation,” Jeff explains.
COVID restrictions meant that the event, which had 75 registrants, had to be postponed. It was converted to an online version in November. There was even more interest in the virtual event, Jeff says, with more than 500 participants from throughout the United States and even from other parts of the world. Sustainability Matters is planning is another event in the spring, focusing on grassland planning, planting and management.
The Carithers conduct a controlled burn on the property every two years in order to maintain the grassland they’ve restored at Spring House.
“Management includes periodic controlled burns and invasive tree removal, but the main work is enjoyment of the beauty of the forbs and variety of birds and other wildlife,” Jeff says. The couple walks the property every morning and enjoys spotting everything from newts to indigo buntings to turtles.
They will have more to walk soon, as they are adding another 7-acre hayfield to Spring House that they will convert to grassland.
For more information on the benefits and beauty of grassland ecosystems, check out the Carithers’ YouTube videos about Spring House, another collaboration with Sustainability Matters.
To find out more about grassland restoration and cost-share programs in your area contact your local NRCS field office.
Bottomlands at Charlotte State Forest. Photo courtesy Heather Richards, The Conservation Fund.
VDOF and The Conservation Fund have protected 2,531 acres of working timberland near the town of Drakes Branch. The property will be the first publicly accessible state land in Charlotte County.
The forest has been sustainably managed for nearly a century for timber resources, high quality wildlife habitat and water resources. Prior to The Conservation Fund’s purchase in 2019 through its Working Forest Fund, the forest was owned by Thomas Bahnson Stanley, the Commonwealth’s 57th governor, and subsequently the Stanley Land and Lumber Corporation, providing shortleaf and Virginia pine, as well as white oak and hickory to local mills for furniture.
Located along Saxkey Road, a designated Virginia Scenic Byway, the upland forests feature critical foraging and potential roosting habitat for federally threatened northern long-eared bats, and the wetlands provide exceptional waterfowl habitat. Now that The Conservation Fund has transferred ownership to VDOF, the land will continue to be sustainably harvested for timber under the Sustainable Forestry Initiative and American Tree Farm Standards, while conserving key habitat areas and providing new public access to outdoor recreation activities, like fishing, hunting and birdwatching.
Charlotte State Forest includes approximately 13 miles of the Roanoke and Wards Ford Creeks—two tributary streams to the Roanoke River, a designated Virginia Scenic River. VDOF plans to acquire an additional 2,500 adjacent acres currently owned by The Conservation Fund, creating the fifth largest SFI-certified state forest in the Commonwealth.
The forest is home to diverse species of plants and wildlife. Photo courtesy Heather Richards, The Conservation Fund.
The effort was supported by federal, state and private funding, including a $1 million grant from the Virginia Outdoors Foundation’s Forest CORE Fund. VOF’s grant required commercial timbering restrictions to be placed on the most sensitive bottomland areas of the property, totaling roughly 600 acres.
“The creation of a new state forest on the Stanley land celebrates a long legacy of well-managed working forests,” said Heather Richards, Virginia state director for The Conservation Fund. “We are honored to assist the Commonwealth in the protection of these timberlands to support local forestry jobs, protect key wildlife habitat and provide new public recreational access for a variety of activities in Charlotte County.”
ThunderCroft's converted pastures are now planted with 22 varieties of native warm-season grasses such as bluestem, indiangrass, and Virginia wild rye.
It was the end of a long day of wildlife observation at ThunderCroft, and conservation biologist Lori Blanc was ready to go home. But something was standing in her way. “It was just gorging itself on acorns, right between me and my car—a fat black bear,” she remembers. “All it cared about was eating, so I waited.” As the sun started to set, Blanc grew impatient. “They startle easily and prefer not to interact with people, so I clapped loudly from a safe distance. It looked my way, scratched its back against a tree and lumbered off.”
Close encounters with black bears may not be for everyone, but visitors to ThunderCroft appreciate what owner Buck Cox calls “a front-row seat to nature.”
Black bears shy away from loud noises and tend to avoid people. A family of three is known to roam the property.
To that end, Cox has invited Blanc to develop various nature-based experiences at ThunderCroft, from short, guided natural history walks to multi-day retreats. Guests will be able to learn about the biodiversity of Appalachia, develop nature observation skills, or contribute to citizen science on ThunderCroft’s eBird and iNaturalist sites.
While the programs are still in the planning stages, guests at either of
Paintings of native wildlife by local artist George Wills decorate the walls of the Brush Mountain Lodge.
ThunderCroft’s two lodges can enjoy views of Brush Mountain and Jefferson National Forest right now. The lodges (one outfitted for overnight stays, the other available as a day-use facility) have balconies and picture windows that offer the possibility of seeing wild turkeys, native songbirds, frogs, toads, and owls, as well as the occasional bear, from a safe yet intimate perch. The property also contains three miles of trails that provide access to Jefferson National Forest.
Protected by an open-space easement with the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF) since 2011, ThunderCroft’s 138 acres are a mix of forest, savannah and meadow that Cox has worked to restore from farm fields since buying the property in 2013. Cox plans to add the 19-acre tract containing the Brush Mountain Lodge to the easement pending VOF approval. ThunderCroft’s varied habitats host around 108 different species of birds.
The meadows planted in wildflowers host numerous butterfly and moth species that feed the 108 species of birds catalogued on the property.
ThunderCroft also contains a cave, which extends 1,000 feet underneath the property, with its deepest point measuring 80 feet straight down. While it is not open to the public, Thunder Cave is currently available to scientists who are monitoring the presence of endangered and threatened species of isopods and amphipods.
Buck Cox monitors the wildlife activity at ThunderCroft through game cameras. This one is trained on an owl box.
Students from Virginia Tech have also conducted research in the different habitats on the property, on everything from the Eastern Screech Owl to the Blacksburg Salamander. To read more about these projects, see the Science Alliance page on the ThunderCroft website.
“My family and I have been here seven years now, and it’s a dream come true,” Cox says. “We want to continue to improve the habitat as well as showcase examples of sustainable building with the lodging that we offer. The goal is to make ThunderCroft a living example of what could be.”
