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A Garden For Wildlife

@flutterbymeadows

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This garden doesn't keep secrets. It tells me everything.
10 years of native plants, wildlife, and learning how to listen.

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Is it just me, or did fall arrive all at once?

There is A LOT happening at @wildbirdresearch right now.

Owl season is right around the corner, which means our fall migration research is about to get underway.

Wings Over Mercer is just over TWO WEEKS AWAY! If you haven’t heard about it yet, it’s our all-day birding event on October 3rd—bringing together birders, researchers, students, families, and the bird-curious for a full day celebrating birds and conservation.

We just dropped new Wings Over Mercer merch designed by @vincentrose_art

We have opportunities to join our team as an Owl Research Technician or get involved as a volunteer this owl season.

And we’re looking for a Development & Membership Coordinator to help WBRG continue growing our research and conservation work.

Whew. That’s a lot.

Luckily, there’s an easy way to keep up with all of it.

Head to our website to learn about Wings Over Mercer, shop the new merch, find opportunities to get involved, and see what we’re working on this fall.

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Living for this partnership 🥹

Excuse the shaky video, it’s not easy to pan up an 8ft tall plant to show the tiny vine climbing it while it sways in the breeze, but you get the idea! This New York ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis) is the perfect trellis for common ground-nut (Apios americana), one of my personal favorites.

I love finding plants that support each other! Sound off in the comments, what’s working together in your yard?

#plantnativeplants #grownativemass

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baby’s first banding at Fiddler’s with the best birdy friends.
*(all birds handled with proper permits & training)

this morning was so beautiful and I’m forever grateful that I’ve stumbled my way into this work with this group of dedicated smarties. I learn so much from you all… about birds, our world, and how to be a better steward. 💚

here’s to at least a few more 5:30 am meetups this season.

@wildbirdresearch
@gourmetbiologist
@emmybebirdin
@flutterbymeadows
@codypanek
@tiffany.bai
@vulture__party

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"Every day is Earth Day" 🌎

A sentiment shared by so many of the wonderful people I've talked to recently that do this work day in and day out...

This Earth week was a special one for me for a few key reasons!

Here I am earlier today walking down the halls of my high school with a shovel. After helping their environmental club plant a tree, I reflected on the fact that I graduated 20 years ago now.

It was my pleasure to help the schools in my school district plant Quercus Alba - Northern White Oaks, the top keystone species tree in our ecoregion, as a volunteer with Hopewell Valley Gardens for Wildlife.

This weekend our local conservation organization hosted a conference at my high school featuring keynote speeches by Doug Tallamy (Homegrown National Park) & Jared Rosenbaum (Wild Ridge Plants). There was also a local panel featuring success stories of converting lawns into native plant gardens by Marian Labos, Samantha Bean, and Alex Rivera.

My Rutgers Environmental Steward class also had our first field trip, to the Musconetcong Watershed, which is restoring their riparian zone (where all those Eastern skunk cabbages are thriving!)

I got to learn about prescribed burns for restoring the health of grasslands from Tina Notas at an NPSNJ presentation on 4/20.

And Earth Day was my 3 year anniversary with my fellow land steward Will, when we visited MagiK Garden and got to help with up-potting sedges and native iris flowers that will be sold in the nursery.

Speaking of irises, the dwarf-crested irises I recently planted from My Backyard At Nectar are in bloom and absolutely beautiful.

Feeling grateful and fulfilled to be able to make change, one plant at a time. 🌳

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Thank you so much to the 230+ people who made our first ever Community Conservation Conference today fantastic!

We appreciate Acting NJDEP Commissioner Ed Potosnak for welcoming everyone to our event. Thank you to our speakers Dr. Doug Tallamy and Jared Rosenbaum and our panelists Samantha Bean, Marian Labos and Alex Rivera, in addition to our sponsors Church & Dwight and PSEG.

We also had lovely exhibitors: Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve, Connecting Habitat Across New Jersey (CHANJ), Habitat Collaborative, My Backyard at Nectars, New Jersey Native Plant Society, Our World Our Choices, Refugia Design, Toadshade Wildflower Farm and Trillium Outside.

Thank you all for attending and your interest in growing backyard biodiversity! We can’t wait for next year! 🐛🌱

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Get your tickets, she’ll be here before you know it! We can’t wait to host Brunch with the Author with @leighannhenion author of Night Magic: Adventures Ampng Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Night! She’s got stories to share as she recounts her nocturnal frolics and the friends she met along the way (hi, @the_caterpillar_lab !). We loved this event last year with inaugural speaker @margaret.renkl and we can’t wait to get back to @bull_run_restaurant ! Special thanks to @thelittlebeebookshop who will be there selling books for the book signing, and The Monarch Gardener (@themonarchgardener), our Small Business Community Partner!

#plantnativeplants #darksky #ecologicalgardening

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Did the voles make a fool of anyone else over the winter? Did the snow melt and reveal that your lovingly planted treasures were chomped down to the point where you’re not sure if they’ll make it, surrounded by incriminating tunnels? Sound off in the comments, what did they get?? This was a beautiful witch hazel that I got from @treetalknatives last spring and I am bereft! It was fenced and everything! RUDE!

#rude #plantnativeplants

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Meet Samantha (@flutterbymeadows) – The Equestrian Bird Lover!

Samantha has been part of WBRG since November 2021 and serves as the co-chair of the Events and Communications Committee. She has also authored many articles for the WBRG blog documenting experiences from our field work.

She’s been amazed by the site fidelity of some bird species. Her favorite bird she’s seen? Mourning Warbler! Her most unforgettable WBRG moment? Spotting a Mourning Warbler for the first time!

Dream bird to see: Cerulean Warbler.

Fun fact: She used to compete in nationally ranked hunter/jumper equestrian shows!

#EquestrianToOrnithologist #BirdBanding #WBRGMemories

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Not every visitor to our station this time of year is a Northern Saw-whet Owl.
Eastern Screech-Owls also stop by—giving us a rare window into their local population dynamics and how they’re using the same habitats we study during saw-whet migration.

Take a behind-the-scenes look in this reel at how we collect these data and why it matters for understanding our local owl community.

Videos by @flutterbymeadows

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Our very first #wingsovermercer is in the books! While I feel like I could sleep for a week straight I’m also SO filled with love and gratitude for the entire WBRG team that rallied together to make this possible! It was so lovely meeting many of our participants in person to support this org that means so much to me.

It’s a critical time to find community and I’m so lucky that I’m surrounded by one thats as giggly and passionate as I am 💕

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Want to join us at #WingsOverMercer but don’t know where to start? We’ve got binoculars, maps, and even starter hotspots ready for you.

#NewJersey #birding #birdathon #wildbirdresearchgroup #conservation #mercermeadows #mercercounty #NOCSprovisions #outdoorfun #birdevents #fallmigration

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#WingsOverMercer is only eight days away! We've been busy preparing for the event with the help of our many sponsors.

We want to publicly thank the many organizations and individuals who are making Wings Over Mercer a reality!
Our event sponsors NOCS, Feather Friendly, Buteo Books and Princeton University Press help make birding accessible and fun for all. They've all donated items that will be given away at WOM! Thanks to their support you could win supplies to make your house more bird-friendly or win books that will help you learn more about the birds of Mercer County. And with the help of NOCS, we will have binoculars available for everyone at the event, including a pair to go home with the top solo spotter.

We also want to shout out all the local organizations that have donated supplies that we need to make WOM happen. Thanks to our local sponsors for everything from tables and chairs to flowers and signs!

You still have a few days to sign up as a solo spotter or make a team to participate in Mercer County's first-ever birdathon!

#birdathon #mercercounty #outdoors #ecofriendly #supportnonprofits #research #goodnews #positivestories #bettertogether #conservation

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