Photos and description of past events.
Our good friend Luke Bennett delighted everyone at the Sept. 4th SWC public meeting at Bass Lake Park with inspiring, amusing, and heartfelt stories from his most recent through-hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. Traversing 490,000 ft. of elevation gain over 2,650 miles and experiencing conditions ranging from ice and snow to arid desert, this … More Tales from the Trail
Moth Night On a beautiful late-August evening last Saturday at Crowder County Park, over twenty-five curious naturalists of all ages gathered to see what insects and arachnids were about. Led by environmental educator Bonnie Eamick, everyone was first introduced to the world of lepidopterans, especially moths, and the setup with sheets and black lights to … More A Fun Night of Discovery
SWC joined high school students with SWANEC in removing stilt grass at Apex Community Park. Somewhat hazardous duty, due to poison ivy in disguise. They had the traditional three leaves, but without the “thumb”. Also, there was grass in-between native species. With the knowledge of Courtney and Bill along with the “Picture This” app, we were … More Stilt Grass Demolition Team
SWC volunteers enjoyed being part of the City of Raleigh’s annual Mud Day at Walnut Creek Wetlands Center again this year. Always a fun event, when the kids (and even some parents) arrived at our exhibit, many were proudly covered in good ‘ol North Carolina red-clay mud! Keeping with the wetland theme, we had a … More A Good Day at Mud Day
This was SWC’s first Wildlife Trivia Night, and based on the popular response, with over 60 people participating, we’ll definitely do this again! Held at the Black Dog Bottle Shop in Holly Springs, Jennifer and Katie put together a fun, yet challenging, series of wildlife questions in six categories: Mammals, Birds, Under the Sea, Reptiles … More A Non-Trivial Trivia Night!
Eco Kids had a fun nature hike at Lake Johnson Park in Raleigh on Saturday, led by Cissy McKissick, checking off wildlife and nature items from their checklists along the way. It was definitely hot that morning, so being on a shaded trail through the woods was a good thing! We saw some cool spider … More Discoveries on the Trail
The weeds were back at the Bass Lake Garden, so a tiger team of eight eager SWC volunteers came to the rescue early Sunday morning. This dedicated team dove right in at 8:00 AM and by 9:45 had completely cleared this large garden of weeds and added a good layer of natural mulch between the … More Starting the Day with a Native Plant Garden Cleanup
On Saturday morning, SWC joined Middle Creek High School-based South Wake Area Native Ecosystems Conservation, SWANEC, and the Town of Apex Environmental Programs Coordinator to tackle removing invasives from Apex Community Park. Last month, SWANEC joined the SWC cleanup at Walnut Creek Wetland Park, and this week it was our turn to join theirs! There was a great … More Community Partnerships at Work!
Today was a double-header, clearing out the weeds that had taken over our native plant garden by the Bass Lake Park picnic shelter and planting aquatic plants along the shore of Bass Lake. What a great turnout and great teamwork to get it all done this morning! The weeding crew did a full court press … More A Day at the Lake
SWC welcomed our good friend Sarah Goldsmith, Lead Educator at Crowder County Park, to share amazing stories at our quarterly meeting last evening about how animals of all kinds are able to build amazing structures without an engineering degree! We had a full house at Bass Lake Park, with 32 people in person and an … More Nature’s Engineers are Popular!