Page 9 – Virginia Outdoors Foundation

Goodbye to Bull Run’s Bug Guy, Michael J.W. Carr!

The Preserve is blessed with an impressive array of research associates from all kinds of specialties. Today we are highlighting Michael J.W. Carr, who has made a huge contribution to understanding some of our smallest mountain residents. A graduate of George Mason University’s conservation biology program, Michael is an accomplished naturalist and entomologist. Over the last several years, he has both assisted in and led a variety of projects.

Michael created the Inaturalist project for the Preserve, which currently sits at an impressive 6,735 observations! Click through the page to check out some amazing photography or compare the most commonly spotted species. Over 100 people have contributed observations to the project so far, and over 900 people have assisted in providing identifications. Thanks to Michael, the Preserve has a record of wildlife encounters that anyone can add to, access, and enjoy!

Speaking of Inaturalist, Michael also utilized this citizen science tool to create an online record of his entomological collection. Over the course of many trapping events, he collected, photographed, preserved, and identified almost 200 insect specimens that became the start to our official Bull Run Mountains synoptic (or comparative reference) collection.

We at the Preserve are so thankful for his scientific contributions, but also for his other forms of volunteering. Michael has helped rebuild a wall at our research outpost, assisted in trail maintenance and invasive plant removal, and brought his enthusiasm and warm smile to countless events.

Michael is off to Santa Fe to pursue exciting new opportunities, but his work here at the Preserve has left behind a lasting legacy. Please join us in wishing him well and offering our sincerest thanks for all his contributions!

Green Family Farms, Fauquier County

Nestled on 443 acres of productive farmland at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the three farms owned by the Green family of Markham—Hartland Orchard, Hartland Farm, and Green Truck Farm—have been welcoming families to their year-round pick-your-own operations for generations. The family’s patriarch, Henry Green, who celebrated his 101^st birthday in April, is pleased to see the business he started in the late 1960s thriving under the management of his sons and nephew. He’s just as pleased to see people enjoying the farm, which he protected with a Virginia Outdoors Foundation easement in 2003. “It’s a good-sized operation,” he says. “Customers drive out and pick what they see, and the family is still all working together to run it.”

By 1962, Henry Green had already been farming for decades.

Visits are a tradition for families across Virginia, many of whom return every year for their favorite picking seasons. While strawberry picking ended in May, the orchard will be open for sour cherries on June 18^th (for just one week, and no sweet cherries this year due to a late frost). Green Truck Farm, located in the front fields of the property, will have blueberries, black raspberries and blackberries from mid-June into July. Beef from cattle raised on the farm and honey from the farm’s hives are also available.

A variety of berries will be ripe for the picking from mid-June through part of July.

Late summer and fall will bring more seasonal fruit (red raspberries, peaches, and tomatoes, with apples and pumpkins not far behind). Hartland also hosts fall festivals, with pick-your-own pumpkins, a corn maze and fun field for the kids. Cut-your-own Christmas trees, with wreaths and other Christmas decorations for sale, round out the year.

A more detailed calendar for cherries, blueberries, peaches and apples can be found on Hartland Orchard’s website. For berries, check out Green Truck farm’s website and Facebook page. To be certain of fruit and vegetable availability, it’s always best to call before driving out. Potential visitors can find more information, directions, and contact numbers here.

For the latest events (like a sunflower planting session for kids!) check out Hartland Farm and Orchard’s Facebook page.

Fifeville Trail, City of Charlottesville

Generations ago, the African American neighborhood of Fifeville in the heart of Charlottesville was connected to local businesses and a community park by 5^th Street. When the city rerouted 5^th Street in the 1960s and broke the connection, residents created an informal trail through a patch of privately owned open space so they could still walk to the places they needed.

Many residents of the neighborhood could see the popular Tonsler Park from their windows but had no safe way to get there on foot.

Starting in the 1970s, “No Trespassing” signs and fencing blocked the trail. Pedestrians were forced to take an extensive and dangerous detour along 7-½, 9th, and the new 5^th Street, now with fast-moving traffic and few sidewalks.

Something had to change, says Carmelita Wood, president of the Fifeville Neighborhood Association (FNA) and longtime advocate of reopening the 5^th Steet trail. “We came together with our neighbors and started talking about how to make the route safer. We wanted to get kids to the park without their parents worrying.”

Neighbors talking and assessing their own needs resulted in the FNA’s Cherry Avenue Corridor Community Visioning Report, which identified goals such as affordable area housing and a plan to guide development of the area businesses. Restoring the old trail was also a neighborhood priority. At community engagement meetings, longtime residents shared memories of how they would take the connector trail down to the creek to play as children; others noted how neighborhood green spaces like the trail had disappeared over the years, lost to development.

The city took notice, awarding the FNA a Small Area Planning grant so that neighbors could begin to map out their ideas. Partners in that planning process included the City of Charlottesville, the Piedmont Environmental Council, and the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation.

Trail planners built a switchback trail up the steep incline to this apartment complex so that elderly residents would have an easier time accessing the trail.

Envisioned in two stages, the project was set on tackling the restoration of the connector path along the old 5^th Street route first, with a second path planned to cross over it, extending eventually between 5^th and 7 ½ streets. This route would create a pedestrian link for people going to work from the surrounding neighborhoods. A grant from the Virginia Outdoors Foundation’s Get Outdoors Program provided funding for implementation, and both trails opened in 2021.

“The VOF grant meant we could hire a professional to complete the whole trail plan at once,” says Michael Holroyd, president of the Rivanna Trails Foundation, the non-profit fiduciary for the project.

Children’s drawings of trolls, fairies and unicorns along the route testify to a new generation of trail users.

Now, at a little over a year old, the trails are well-used and maintained by the people who envisioned them. The nearby mosque and Abundant Life Ministries, along with the local Boy Scouts troop, have hosted cleanups. Colorful drawings by neighborhood children posted on trees alert passerby to hidden fairies and potential unicorn crossings—handmade evidence of a new generation of Fifeville and Charlottesville neighbors who are making the trail their own.

“It’s for everybody,” says Wood. “People from the community going to the stores on Cherry Avenue, people who work at the University of Virginia, or just people out walking the dog. The need for and love for this space is so clear.”

Welcome Erica Lyon

Please help us officially welcome VOF Herpetological Field Intern, Erica Lyon!

Erica joined VOF this season to assist our VOF Herpetological fellow, Lauren Fuchs with her field work investigating the Ophifiomyces ophiodiicola fungus in Bull Run Mountains’ snake populations 
 
Photo by Herpetology Fellow Lauren Fuchs

Before coming onto this project Erica earned her dual bachelors degrees in Environmental Science and Psychology from @vcu where she helped out with @vcuricerivers translocation study on box turtles 

Erica enjoys has worked as an outdoor adventure guide and anticipates her time here at VOF’s Preserve will be a crucial professional step in her journey into the fields of wildlife conservation and animal behavior.

Field of Dreams Recreational Complex, Craig County

It was 2007, and kids in Craig County needed a place to play ball. “We’re a rural community, and kids don’t have a lot to do, so sports are very popular here,” says Debbie Snead, adviser to the Craig County Recreation and Conservation Association (CCR&CA). “We had no regulation fields, so every time there was a league game parents had to haul the kids to the next county over.” Building a home for Craig County’s youth teams would not only ease the travel expenses that prevented some families from participating but also give the young athletes a sense of pride in their own community.

Team sports is the activity of choice for Craig County schoolkids, who now have three regulation ball fields where they can practice and host games.

With no county parks department to turn to, Snead and other community leaders filled the gap by forming the nonprofit CCR&CA. A generous landowner catalyzed the project, says Snead. “We started looking for property and about two months later we were contacted by a gentleman who wanted to sell us 18 acres for below the assessed value.” Located within walking distance of the local elementary and high school buildings, the parcel also had access to Craig Creek, a popular county blueway.

That first stroke of luck was followed by 15 years of hard work raising funds and garnering in-kind support. By the summer of 2021, the association had completed three regulation ballfields, installed electricity and water lines for concessions, and started constructing restroom facilities.

Snead estimates that around 25 percent of the labor was volunteer. “I have been amazed at the in-kind support,” she states. “When we discovered that the public service authority water supply was just half a mile away from the site, a local contractor dug out the ditch for us.”

The last project needed to complete the complex was a septic system for the restrooms, but it was expensive and Snead had exhausted most of the local donors. “I almost threw up my hands trying to find more funds,” she recalls. Then she learned about the Virginia Outdoors Foundation’s Get Outdoors grant program. “That grant, combined with a portion of the county Economic Development Authority’s Covid relief funds, was enough to do it,” she says.

The Field of Dreams complex is used for softball, baseball, soccer, horse shows, kayaking, walking, and fund-raising events. The restrooms will allow even more kids and families to comfortably and safely use the space.

By the summer of 2021 the building for restrooms (center) was nearing completion, but Snead was still looking for ways to fund a septic system.

“Now we’ve finished the last major infrastructure project and can go on to other things,” Snead states. The Craig County Child Care Center has chosen the complex as the site for its new outdoor learning lab, which will serve school-aged kids from the center. The CCR&CA’s future plans include installing fencing around the entire complex and building a picnic pavilion down by the creek.

“That’s why I keep working,” she adds. “So many good things have happened to us and we can weave it all together slow but steady.”

Research update! Anthropogenic noise and cardinals on the Preserve

A hearty congratulations are in order for Preserve Research Associate, Shawn Smith! Shawn is a PhD candidate at George Mason University’s environmental science and policy program, and recently won best student speed talk for his presentation for the Virginia chapter of The Wildlife Society. We are so proud of Shawn and the important work he is conducting, some of which happened right here at the Preserve.

Shawn receiving his award at the VA-TWS meeting!

His research takes a look at how anthropogenic (or human-created) noise affects communication in songbirds. While his analysis is still ongoing, he let us know that he has found evidence that birds like the Northern Cardinal are committing more “communication errors” in areas with higher levels of noise. As Shawn explained, “They don’t always hear or respond to calls when they are expected to, and sometimes they commit false alarms. This equates to us picking up our phone when it isn’t ringing or believing we heard a knock at the door when there wasn’t anyone knocking.”

This is the first experimental study of its kind and will have important conservation implications. Birds like the cardinal rely heavily on acoustic signaling for mate attraction, predator avoidance, and more. By demonstrating in the field that human noise (like from traffic on 66!) affects their success in this, Shawn is laying critical groundwork for further study and conservation practices.

Congratulations to Shawn on his recent award, and a huge thank you for his hard work and dedication to bird conservation!

Warning: Insane cuteness ahead!

Scolopax minor, or the woodcock, is a quirky, enigmatic little bird with a variety of different names throughout its range – the timberdoodle, the hokumpoke, the bog sucker, the Labrador twister.

Whatever you chose to call it, our native woodcocks have successfully performed their entrancing mating displays and peented their annual PEENT’s and as a result, their babies are now being spotted throughout the preserve!

As our staff can attest, this bird is abundant throughout Bull Run Mountains, but is also very cryptic.

Their camouflage is so good that one usually only gets the delight of seeing them during their annual mating displays, or when you are walking through the woods and suddenly the forest floor seems to leap up and fly away just one step ahead of you!

There have been a few lucky exceptions being reported. This one coming with photos and video of the little babies. Totally healthy and well, they were just doing what mom taught them to do: Don’t move, stay hidden, and then explode into flight at the last second .

As seen in these photos, they are still working on that flying part

Introducing Sydney Jackson!

Please help us welcome Sydney Jackson, who was selected to be our five week research student as part of our partner organization Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation’s (@smconservation) Endangered Species Conservation program 

Sydney discovered her love for the environment in high school after taking AP Environmental Science and after graduating from George Mason University this summer, she hopes to find work as a forest conservationist focused on protecting North American forest ecosystems 

While here at VOF’s Preserve at Bull Run Mountains, she will be helping our staff continue their exciting ethnobotanical research project. Stay tuned for more updates on that!

Welcoming Deneith Reif

BRMNAP’s new Preserve Assistant, Deneith Reif

The Preserve is thrilled to welcome our new Preserve Assistant, Deneith Reif! Hailing from sunny Florida originally, Deneith comes to us via the National Park Service where she worked as both a biological technician and trail maintainer. She also spent time in the AmeriCorps program where she learned valuable techniques in ecological restoration. In addition to her impressive work experience, Deneith holds a B.S in Natural Resource Conservation from the University of Florida. With certifications in chainsaw operation, invasive plant management, and even wildland firefighting, she is bringing much-needed expertise to our small but mighty Preserve team!

Beyond her impressive work and academic experience, Deneith has already demonstrated herself to be a creative problem-solver and enthusiastic nature-lover. In her free time, she works on scientific illustration and map-drawing projects—a skillset we hope to have her utilize here at Bull Run Mountains Natural Area Preserve soon.

Deneith will be out on our trail system working and engaging with visitors often, so be sure to stop and say hi if you spot her! She is very much looking forward to meeting the members of our mountain community and learning all she can about this special place. Welcome, Deneith! We are so glad to have you.

VOF Creates New Position to Further Community Conservation Goals

Formerly of DCR and Richmond Parks and Recreation, Nathan Burrell joins VOF as community conservation and outreach manager.

Whether it’s restoring walkable and bikeable links to urban resources or reconnecting people to the beauty and benefits of natural spaces, community conservation is about “restitching a fabric that’s been torn,” says Nathan Burrell, VOF’s new community conservation & government relations director.

In the newly created position, Burrell will act as a bridge between grass-roots organizations trying to meet a community’s open-space needs and the resources that are available to them through VOF’s Get Outdoors and Preservation Trust Fund grant programs. He will also lead VOF’s government relations work with key state agency and local government partners.

A native of Tappahannock and graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, Burrell’s prior work with the Virginia Department of Conservation Resources and Richmond City Parks and Recreation “helped hone my understanding of community conservation,” he says. As the Richmond parks system became more responsive to community input, a greater diversity of people came to love the city’s outdoor resources and call them their own, Burrell states. “When I started working at the park system as trails manager, there was a limited segment of the population using the resources. Fast forward to now and you see a diversity you never would have seen 15 years ago. Now you can go to almost any part of the park and you’re hearing five different languages.”

Conservation for a more diverse community also means conservation by a more diverse community, he states. “It was in Richmond that I saw people come up with their own plan for the river. They knew exactly where river access was needed, and we were able to help them achieve that.

“Most communities have great ideas about what they need,” he adds, “but they often don’t know about opportunities to make it happen.”

Burrell sees an opportunity for VOF, too, to further position itself as a catalyst in preserving the open spaces that people need to thrive.

“As we step into communities, we get to be the force multiplier and the great convener. We can say to them, you have the knowledge piece of it; how can we help you achieve your vision?”