Featured News

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Pennypack Trust protects 37 more acres

The Pennypack Preserve natural area recently grew to 771 acres with the protection of three parcels totaling 37 acres on February 9, 2009. The properties, on the grounds of the Lord’s New Church in the Borough of Bryn Athyn, embrace the headwaters of a tributary to Pennypack Creek as well as magnificent upland forests, mature evergreen plantations, and acres of old-field habitat. The Trust protected two of the parcels (10.07 and 14.01 acres) with conservation easements, and purchased the third (12.75 acres) outright.

This complex acquisition was made possible by the generous support of Montgomery County’s (PA) Green Fields/Green Towns open space program. Three municipalities partnered with the Trust to complete the project by dedicating portions of their Green Fields/Green Towns allocations to the project: the Borough of Bryn Athyn, the Township of Lower Moreland, and the Township of Upper Moreland. The county program also provided support directly to the Pennypack Trust. In addition, the Trust received equally significant support from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and natural Resources’ Community Conservation Partnership Program, which provided a grant that covered nearly 40% of the project cost.

The Trust’s stewardship staff will blaze a new trail to provide public access to the 10-acre easement, but hikers can visit the other two parcels right now via the Trust’s Pennypack Creek Trail.

Raytharn Farm grasslands completed

On Election Day 2008 (November 4), nearly all the remainder of Raytharn Farm was seeded with native grasses. Arriving late in the afternoon and relying on powerful tractor headlights and a GPS-guided tracking system, the Trust’s contractors, FDC Enterprises of Columbus, Ohio, worked until midnight, and then packed up and headed to their next job in Virginia. By the next morning, the only evidence of their nocturnal labors was the countless parallel lines indicating where the seed had been inserted into slits cut in the soil.

While the Trust’s native meadow establishment efforts, begun in 2000, already have produced beautiful grasslands on 60 acres of the farm, these meadows so far have failed to attract the grassland-nesting birds that the Trust hopes will use the habitat—birds like Eastern Meadowlarks and Bobolinks—as well as several species of sparrows. As a result, the Trust modified the seed mixture used for the recent planting, incorporating just two native grasses (i.e., little bluestem [Schizachyrium scoparium] and Indian-grass [Sorghastrum nutans]) instead of the five species used in previous plantings. Perhaps even more importantly, though, we added seeds of eight species of wildflowers including black-eyed susans (Rudbeckia hirta), purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea), blazing-stars (Liatris spicata), and ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis). If the planting develops as we hope, the 60 newly planted acres will grow up with a beautiful combination of grasses and wildflowers—the grasses offering cover and protection, and the wildflowers (and their associated insects) providing a bountiful food source.

Donations to the Trust’s 2007 year-end Annual Fund solicitation provided much of the support for establishing the grasslands on Raytharn Farm. The Trust received additional project support from two local charitable foundations.