By guest blogger Eunice Kimm (’14)
Last Fall (2013) I started working on creating educational signs for the Avalonia Land Conservancy’s Knox Preserve near Mystic, CT. Avalonia is a non-profit organization that preserves over 3,000 acres of natural areas in southeastern Connecticut. Visitors frequently come to Knox Preserve to stroll the scenic paths, walk their dogs or watch birds, but many are unaware of underlying ecological issues – including invasive plant species – at the site.
The signs I am designing provide information on four types of habitat found at Knox Preserve: salt marshes, grasslands, coastal shrub lands, and stone walls in between these unique habitats that contain many different types of plants. Each sign will contain educational text and geographic data, as well as one or two drawings of common or important bird species found there. The sign covering the stone wall area will incorporate bird-banding data collected by Avalonia and volunteers since 1990, as well as GIS analyses to show how bird species demographics have changed over time. This visual representation will also show the influence of the area’s shifting habitats and invasive plant species. Hopefully, these signs will inform visitors about Avalonia’s efforts to manage these unique and valuable habitats at Knox Preserve, and restore critical bird nesting and stopover habitat to desirable native species .
Avalonia is an entirely volunteer-driven organization, and it is only through the work and dedication of devoted members that access to many of their properties is maintained. If people were better educated about what was really happening they might become more interested in helping with Avalonia’s efforts to protect this area.
Rough sketch of a yellow-breasted chat (Icteria virens)