Category: Conservation
2019 Bird Census Results
June 24, 2019by Ben Vizzachero, Environmental Educator
On the morning of June 1st, staff and volunteers completed the Schuylkill Center’s Nesting Bird Survey. Birders of all experience levels come out to participate in this annual citizen science project. Birding is one of the most popular ways to engage with the natural world. Read this article by Jack Connor to learn more about why birding is so great (warning: you may shed a tear).
[caption id="attachment_270832" align="alignleft" width="208"] Blue Jay[/caption]
To complete the count, participants break up into five groups and walk through all major areas of the Schuylkill Center’s property. As they…
Photographing faces in the forest
January 3, 2019
When I go for a nature walk in a local forest, I see trees, birds, flowers, deer.
Not photographer Willard Terry.
When he goes for a walk — which he does a lot — he sees faces, lots of faces, incredible faces. Gnomes, ghosts, demons, animals, dinosaurs, people, aliens, all staring at him from tree trunks, tree roots, broken branches, gnarly bark, rock walls, even fence posts and barn siding.
Amazingly, once you start looking for them, there are faces everywhere.
And Terry has been photographing them.
He just published a book, “Pareidolia: Spirits and Faces of the Wissahickon and Schuylkill Valleys,”…
Ten Good Things about Trees
October 25, 2018by Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
I’ve been thinking about trees a lot these last few weeks, in part because the leaves are turning color and falling to the ground, something I look forward to every year. But also because the Schuylkill Center just found evidence of emerald ash borers on our massive property, something that is deeply troubling, as we are now faced with hundreds of dead and dying trees.
And because not far from the Schuylkill Center, a sister nonprofit cleared about an acre of trees to make room for a playground. Playgrounds, of course, are wonderful things, but…
An Invitation to the Nesting Bird Census
May 31, 2018By Mike Weilbacher
Join us on June 16th for coffee, donuts, and peak birding! The annual Nesting Bird Census is one of the many opportunities to engage in citizen science at the Schuylkill Center.
[caption id="attachment_270046" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Pileated Woodpecker, by Chris Petrak[/caption]
In early May, a small group of us spent a morning walking the Grey Fox loop, the long trail that ventures through diverse habitats meadows—Pine Grove, farms, a stream, and Wind Dance Pond—searching for birds that were then migrating through the Schuylkill Center’s extensive forest. There is a narrow window of opportunity to see them—and our group…
Naturalist’s Notebook: Native Plants, Harbingers of Spring
March 29, 2018
The end is near! The world? No, just the winter season. And what bears such glad tidings you wonder? Our native plant friends. In February, the Schuylkill Center staff took its monthly nature walk down Ravine Loop hunting for the first tell of spring, skunk cabbage (above). I’m happy to report that we found it on February 9th in a particularly wet area just above Smith Run where the little stone bridge crosses a semi-perennial tributary. Just barely visible was its little purplish hood, the forbearer of the true flower. The first source of pollen in late winter, skunk cabbage…
Field Guide: Post-Storm Tree Assessment
March 15, 2018By Steve Goin, Director of Land and Facilities
See other Field Guide posts here.
As Director of Land and Facilities at the Schuylkill Center, the care of our trees rests on my shoulders. With 340 mostly forested acres, our tree population is large and diverse in both species and maturity. The recent nor’easters brought heavy, wet snow and a barrage of winds, impacting our trees and in some cases causing damage. The damage is as varied as the trees themselves. Some trees barely lost a twig, others had major limbs break, and some even blew completely over, known as windthrow.…
Roxborough’s Toad Rage
February 15, 2018By Claire Morgan, Volunteer Coordinator & Administrative Assistant
It’s early spring, just around sunset, and the conditions are just right—55 degrees and humid. A high-pitched trilling rings out in the distance. The shallow water of the Upper Roxborough Reservoir Preserve stirs with excitement. The toads of Roxborough are ready to run—and ready to attract a mate.
On some evenings, as many as two hundred toads can be seen heading from the Schuylkill Center’s forest to the Upper Roxborough Reservoir Preserve in a period of just two hours. The steady stream of traffic at the intersection of Hagy’s Mill Road and Port…
Roxborough’s Kay Sykora is the 2017 Meigs Leadership Awardee
October 26, 2017By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
On Thursday, November 16 at 7 pm, the Schuylkill Center presents our highest honor, the Henry Meigs Award for Environmental Leadership, to an old friend and Roxborough neighbor, Kay Sykora.
Founder of the incredibly successful Manayunk Development Corporation in the early 1980s, Kay has over the last 30 years pioneered and tirelessly championed the Schuylkill River Trail through Manayunk and Roxborough, leading the effort to transform the canal towpath into the River Trail, now one of Manayunk’s most-loved amenities. She played a key role in the planning efforts that led to the Manayunk Bridge’s reinvention as a…
Naturalist’s Notebook: The Missing Sponge
July 11, 2017
By Andrew Kirkpatrick, Manager of Land Stewardship
If you take a walk along Smith Run, coming up Ravine Loop below Penn’s Native Acres, the hillsides where the beeches, oaks and maples grow show signs of distress. The structural roots of the trees are visible at the soil line when they should be tucked away cozily wrapped in the warm blanket of leaf litter and organic rich soil. Instead, because of exotic invasive earthworms, which can be observed by scraping away the thin layer of leaves on the ground, the roots are exposed and left to fend for themselves in all…
Schuylkill Center’s Statement on the U.S. Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord
June 2, 2017By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
SCEE visitors added their climate stories at 2016's Naturepalooza Earth Day Festival.
A big environmental shoe dropped yesterday when President Trump announced, not unexpectedly, his intention to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.
The Schuylkill Center, along with not only the global environmental community but also, surprisingly, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, oil giant ExxonMobil, the World Coal Association, Pope Francis, Goldman Sachs, Apple, GE, Weather.com, and the majority of American people, expresses our disappointment in this decision.
We also note our commitment not only to fact-based climate change education, but to high-quality science…
