The Importance of Young Forests

From: mass.gov

Young forest habitats, areas of densely clustered tree saplings and sprouts, have become relatively scarce in Massachusetts over the past 50 years, and now occupy less than 4% of the forested landscape. MassWildlife’s habitat goals call for 10-15% young forest to conserve wildlife that rely on this unique habitat including New England cottontail, American woodcock, ruffed grouse, and golden-winged warbler. The species have experienced decline and need young forests for nesting, foraging for food and evading predators. These same habitats are also used by many songbirds, and by game species such as white-tailed deer, wild turkey, and black bear.

The state is providing technical and financial aid for landowners to create young forests. More details can be found on their page, while information about young forests can be found here.

New Geocaches in Inches Woods

I’m pleased to see that there are two new Geocaches that were placed in Inches Woods (plus a third bonus cache) in late October. Given how often I’m back there, I’m surprised I haven’t spotted them by accident.

If you haven’t heard about geocaching, there are millions of ‘caches’ hidden all across the world by individuals – in the center of New York city, Antarctica, and even Boxborough. Using just your phone, or a dedicated GPS device, participants can search out these caches. It’s a nice way to discover new trails, and a great excuse to get outside. The video below does a great job of explaining it.

By my rough count we have 64 (!) caches in Boxborough alone, and about 10 on BCtrust land. Some are simple caches – find the box and you’re done, others are multi-caches where you find stages leading up to the final, and some you have to solve puzzles ahead of time to work out the correct coordinates.  We even have an earth-cache – a cache without an actual box that’s at the site of a notable geological feature – you’ve guessed it, the Esker.

The new Inches Woods’ caches can be found here and here. Sign up for an account at Geocaching if you’re interested in finding these and others.

Alex Kerin

Board and Event Timelines

In the BCTrust’s 20 years of hard work, many people in town have been part of the efforts to protect our land. For the 20th Anniversary Celebration we created two timelines, one to show what we’ve achieved, and one to show the board members. Both can be found on the website, and are interactive. The first is the board timeline; you can see all of the board members and click on the legend to filter to the different positions.

The second is the interactive timeline of events; it includes the incorporation of the trust, our land acquisitions, the work we’ve done to protect other parcels, and our community outreach. The events are color-coded for the type of activity, and you can click each to get more information and pictures.

Finally we have a list of everyone else who has helped with Common Ground, Blanchard Art Contents, and so on. Thank you to everyone, including our members who make the BCTrust’s work possible.

BCTrust.org through the ages

As part of a timeline we’re creating for the 20th Anniversary celebration I ended up going down a rabbit-hole at the Wayback Machine, a site that captures prior versions of websites. The first capture of BCTrust is in December 2000, about year after it was created with the help of Ben Hood, a then sophomore at AB High School. It’s really interesting to scroll through history, noting when we have ‘Get out the Vote‘ messages, and when the website changed, changed, changed, changed, changed, and then changed to the current version. Some images are broken, but it’s a pretty good history lesson.

Alex Kerin

Minuteman Airfield Awards Ceremony

On November 4th, 2017, the Boxborough Conservation Trust joined the Stow Conservation Trust at Minuteman Airfield in Stow and for an awards ceremony and each land trust received a check for $1000. The donations were the proceeds from the “fun run” held last month as part of the Airfield’s open house event, and, included a generous donation from the Airfield as well. BCTrust board members Jeanne Kangas, Rita Grossman and Simon Bunyard (front row) represented the Trust. In the back row are: Don McPherson, owner of Minuteman Airfield; Mike Smith, a pilot, president of the local EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) chapter and organizer of last month’s event; Eric Rolfe, Minuteman Airfield Board of Commissioners; and, Peter Alberti, EEA and organizer of the “fun run.” Both the BCTrust and the Stow Conservation Trust were very grateful and pleased to have been chosen as recipients of the fundraiser!

Inches Woods Ribbon Cutting – 10/14/17

The ribbon cutting was a great success. Thank you to everyone who attended. You can read more about it, and the land, here. If you missed it, here’s a video of the ceremony

BCTrust 2016 Annual Meeting: Land Conservation and Climate Change

The focus of the BC Trust’s March 31, 2016 Annual Meeting was upon the relationship between land conservation and climate change. Two keynote speakers addressed this important topic from different perspectives. First, author, editor and scientist Peter Bunyard presented and summarized the Biotic Pump Theory, a controversial hypothesis that challenges conventionally held beliefs about weather, […]
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Shurtleff Woods: Newly acquired land and trail

The BCTrust purchased this 13 acre parcel from the Shurtleff family in 2015. With its valuable wildlife habitat including vernal pools, wetland buffer and a mixed deciduous-coniferous wooded upland, it enhances the conservation value of the town-owned Patch Hill land. A half-mile looped trail has been blazed and is accessible from the Patch Hill trails.

New Web Design and New Facebook Page

The BCTrust is pleased to welcome you to our new web pages. We’ve made a few changes to the design (and more will be coming), but the main reason for change was to allow the board members to easily edit and add new information about the Trust’s conservation efforts.

This has allowed us to add secure e-commerce, so that you can renew your membership and donate online. We’ll be working on more content over the coming months, including the new Shurtleff Woods and Inches Woods.

We’re also delighted to announce our new Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/bctrustorg), where we hope you will contribute pictures and trail reports.