Join Eco-A for a Naturalist Walk at the Blue Heron Nature Preserve, located on Roswell Rd just north of the intersection with Piedmont Rd. This small but vibrant natural area hosts a short stretch of Nancy Creek along with a tributary stream that beavers have found suitable for in-town living. In fact this year a new baby beaver was born!

We can’t be sure we’ll see the young one, since beavers are usually most active in the low light of dusk or dawn (as captured in this night video at the Blue Heron Nature Preserve). An adolescent beaver will spend about 2 years with parents learning the engineering skills necessary for beaver life – think serious wildlife graduate school. Beavers must learn to size up trees and fell them correctly in target directions (seldom do they make mistakes) as well as build and maintain networks of dams with precise amounts of flow and current.

We’ll walk in two sections of the preserve, appreciating and learning about the trees and plants found along the way. Photographers are welcome to bring cameras on this outing, and photos taken here will be eligible for the Eco-A’s next photography show at City Hall in the spring of 2017.

We’ll also walk two blocks to Lisa’s private garden with 24 years of maturity.  The woodland garden is drought tolerant and diversely planted with unusual trees, conifers, shrubs and perennials as an understory to mature pines and tulip poplars, with something blooming 12 months of the year.

To register, click HERE  – Details and directions will be sent to registered participants. 

A donation of $15 or more helps sustain our programs.

above photos: left, Jewelweed © Kathryn Kolb, right, night-time photo of beavers, courtesy Blue Heron Nature Preserve.

More on beavers:

This informative and entertaining National Geographic documentary follows a beaver family through one season: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmGo7IaNWf0

Below is a great amateur video of beavers repairing their lodge in winter: