The Scarborough Land Trust is offering a variety of upcoming nature-based programs available to the public, in addition to their work of conservation and stewardship of local land. Most of the events are free and some have a small fee. The land trust asks that everyone pre-register for events on the organization’s website.

On Sunday, July 23 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. is a “Contemplative Summer Walk” at Pleasant Hill Preserve.

The walk is part of a series the land trust hosts each season that focuses on “creating personal connections to nature and to the land, and seeing how lands change over time and through the seasons,” said Henry Gustavson, education and communications specialist at the Scarborough Land Trust. The walk will be led by Nicole Diroff, a Maine Master Naturalist, United Church of Christ minister, and Program Director at the BTS Center.

On July 24 from 9 a.m. to noon is an “Invasive Species Info and Work Session” at Blue Point Preserve.

These sessions essentially serve as volunteer work days where stewardship teams work to manage and mostly remove invasive species from a variety of properties. These are led by Samantha Wolf, stewardship director at the Scarborough Land Trust. More of these events will take place on August 5, 7, 18, and into the fall.

On July 25 is “Bats: Fact vs. Myth,” a program at Broadturn Farm from 7:45 p.m. to 9:45 p.m., will take place.

Led by Andrew Mackie, executive director of the Scarborough Land Trust, this program will educate participants on the natural history and conservation of bats while finding and identifying different species of bats at Broadturn Farm. Pre-registration is required on the trust’s website.

“The bat program will focus not only on the bats, the particular species that live in that farm, but we do also own a bat detector which plugs into a smart phone and detects the frequencies that the bats emit as part of their navigation,” said Mackie. “And that bat detector will help us ID other species even when it gets too dark to really see the bats very well.”

Perhaps one of the land trust’s most notable programs is “Follow a Raindrop.” This program is a three-part series taking place over three different Wednesdays: July 26, Aug. 9, and Aug. 16. The series takes place at three different locations: Broadturn Farm, Blue Point Reserve, and Ferry Beach. The program has two sections, a morning one at 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. and an afternoon one at 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

“Follow a Raindrop is one of our biggest and most expansive programs of the summer,” Gustavson said. “The program is looking at the properties of water and how water moves through the town of Scarborough from freshwater systems through the marsh then out to the coast. We will be sampling some of the properties of the water like temperature and pH and other things, and also sampling some of the organisms that live in these different ecosystems and communities. There’s really an educational focus on that program, one that we’re really excited for and do really want to push.”

The program Follow a Raindrop is a partnership program with Friends of Scarborough Marsh.

“We developed this program really to help children and their parents understand the importance of water in Scarborough,” Mackie explained. “It’s really an exciting program because we look at a freshwater brook, we look at Scarborough Marsh, then we look at the coastal system at Ferry Beach. We’re really covering three very different habitats, but they’re all tied together because of water.”

The Scarborough Land Trust is offering to give scholarship funding to anyone who requests it for this event. “We want to make this accessible and we think it’s a really important thing to share with as many people as we can,” said Gustavson.

On July 29 is a “Wildflower Walk” at Warren Woods from 10 a.m. to noon. The program is led by Becky Warren Seal, who has experience and family ties at the property and is well versed with the wildflowers on the land.

On July 30 the Scarborough Land Trust is visiting the Scarborough Farmer’s Market. The land trust will have a tent at the farmer’s market with the aim of engaging with the public, selling items such as merchandise, books, and field guides, telling people about new trails, and getting people involved. This visit is part of a series in which the land trust is participating in farmer’s markets.

On Aug. 1 from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. there will be a virtual event, “Anatomy of a Trail”.

“Led by Stewardship Director Samantha Wolf, she will be talking about what goes into planning and then building a trail in Southern Maine, and what consideration it takes, and what techniques and tools and things like that are needed,” said Gustavson.

On Aug. 6 and 27 is a morning yoga session at Broadturn Farm from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.

“This is something we are trying out this summer,” said Gustavson. “We had originally scheduled it at Blue Point, it ended up being rained out, we rescheduled again, it got rained out again. We moved it to Broadturn Farm. That will give us the flexibility to be outside if the weather’s nice, but then if it rains or if it’s wet then we can move into the barn. That will be on Aug. 6, and there will be another session of that on Aug. 27.”

On Aug. 20 is a nature awareness walk at Fuller Farm from 10 a.m. to noon. This event is to be led by Educator and Naturalist Ryan Busby.

The 11^th Annual Broadturn Farm Dinner takes place Aug. 24.

“It’s a huge event for us because it’s our biggest fundraiser of the year,” Mackie said. Tickets usually sell out and go on sale the morning of July 25.

Copy the Story Link

Comments are not available on this story.