In the Quinnipiac Meadows Nature Preserve, a young osprey sat quietly perched on a dead log with her nest looming 30ft overhead. The sparse shrubs and tall grasses gave her little relief from the hot summer sun. Her parents glide high overhead, screeching concern for their little one.

Hi! My name is Harry Zehner and I work at the New Haven Land Trust over the summer through the City of New Haven and Youth at Work. We are doing many exciting things this summer, working in gardens and preserves in various capacities. The second week of work was filled with new on the job experiences. The first two days were centered around building a new compost heap in the Grand Acres garden. We had already dug three foot holes for the four by four posts that would become the foundation of the compost heap.

Kids 2 Coastline program just finished its first week! Educators welcomed two groups of kids from New Haven's Boys and Girls club, ages 6-8, and 9-10. Eager to learn and explore the Long Wharf Nature preserve, youth groups did their best to combat the 90 degree heat and they succeeded. Enthusiasm never wavered as they explored the salt marsh, learned about ecosystems, habitats, mollusks, tides, the Long Island Sound, stewardship and more.  We got very lucky and were able to find and hold both a fiddler crab and a horseshoe crab in their natural surroundings.

At the volunteer workday last Saturday we cleared the Urban Oasis of invasive species at Long Wharf! We uprooted Bittersweet, and Mugwort to clear space for our fall plantings to breathe. Oriental bittersweet, also known as the "Kudzu of the North", is a woody vine that climbs over existing trees and shrubs. If left alone, Bittersweet can smother and kill trees or shrubs by monopolizing light and water. So the important work done of clearing out invasives like Bittersweet helps protect the native species at Long Wharf!

As readers of this blog and visitors to the Long Wharf Nature Preserve probably know, the Land Trust – with the help of our partners, supporters, and dedicated volunteers – was able to install brand new educational signs in the Long Wharf Nature Preserve last summer. However, what they might not know is that a similar makeover will soon be occurring at our Quinnipiac Meadows Nature Preserve. Again thanks to our generous supporters, partners, and volunteers, the Land Trust will soon be installing eight new educational signs in Quinnipiac Meadows.

The Early Birders got coffee and snacks this morning but that's not what got them up to visit Quinnipiac Meadows at 8 am. It was a beautiful morning for birding and we were rewarded with the chance to see 30 different bird species and about 200 individuals! Check out eBird to see the list of everything we saw this morning. Bill Batsford of the New Haven Bird Club led the walk through the preserve and was kind enough to set up his scope so we could get a better view.

Cold Spring School is a unique and wonderful place for learning for kids. Students at the school have produced several podcasts related to Grannis Island, which is part of the Quinnipiac Meadows Nature Preserve. We here at the Land Trust have learned a lot from listening to them!

The New Haven Land Trust and our trusty volunteers have worked hard to make improvements to the Long Wharf Nature Preserve this year.

At the community garden on Davenport, we did several things to clear it out and make it look much nicer. One thing we did was we cleared out many weeds throughout the entire garden. There was a ton of mugwort all over the place there! We also moved a large brush pile to the street to be removed, and we moved a garden bed. Another thing we did was we cleared the fences of vines and other weeds. This was challenging because some of the weeds were able to weave themselves into the fence, and they were very difficult to pull out of the fence.