Summer Stewardship at NWALT

It’s been a long, hot summer in NWA. The Stewardship Team is always up to the challenge though! We are a small but mighty team and with your support we accomplished a ton.

This year we were grateful for a new partnership with Aerie Real Foundation to bring on paid interns to support our nature preserve management. Angie Borchardt joined us this season and proved her mettle, building new crossings and rerouting trail at Wilson Springs Preserve and assisting with habitat restoration and plant management.

We continued work at Betty Hinshaw Bird Sanctuary, prepping for upcoming native seed planting and prescribed fire. Our NWA Master Naturalist friends documented 24 bluebird fledglings in our nest boxes there! To date citizen scientists have observed 117 bird species in the sanctuary. We expect that number to continue growing as we keep up restoration work.

It’s safe to say we are tired of tires. We removed another 100 from Lake Frances Preserve, a pile that started at almost 500 and which staff referred to as our stewardship “white whale!” These tires were illegally dumped over years and took herculean effort to round them up and get them off the preserve.

Flint Creek Headwaters Preserve saw its share of action too. We spent the summer removing invasive species such as garlic mustard and had to reroute part of the trail after severe erosion. The trail now includes a short creek wading section (awesome in summer) and a new set of steps up the bank. Flint Creek is one of our more challenging preserves to manage, but we sure do love it!

And finally, after a few staff transitions we welcomed Brittney Booth to the full-time team as our new Land Stewardship Coordinator. We are so happy to have her on the NWALT crew!

Wilson Springs Preserve is in full bloom right now, so get out there and explore before the gray days of winter are upon us. You’ll be glad you did. Thanks to everyone for supporting our stewardship efforts across NWA!