Native Plant Explosion at Bass Lake Park
It seems a lot of folks were more than ready to get outside and have some “dirt therapy” after all the Thanksgiving feasting! Over twenty volunteers came to Bass Lake Park Sunday afternoon to refresh, plant, and mulch a multitude of new native plants in the SWC Native Shade Plant Demonstration Garden. Debra Quinlan and…
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A Tree for John
SWC members and friends gathered Sunday afternoon to dedicate a ten-foot white oak (Quercus alba) at Crowder County Park as a living memorial to John Kinsella, long-time SWC VP and board member and key leader of a multitude of conservation projects and activities over the years. Beth Kinsella and John and Beth’s son and daughter-in…
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Did Somebody Say “Privet?!”
This conservation crew is on it! SWC and Wake Audubon continue to rally around a very exciting collaborative project at a little-known gem of a nature park in Fuquay Varina called the Carroll Howard Johnson Environmental Education Park. Today, we removed another large trailer load of invasive plants, mostly Chinese privet (Ligustrum sinense), but also…
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SWC Flocked Together at Sylvan Heights Bird Park!
What a truly great day SWC had on Saturday during our recent outing to Sylvan Heights Bird Park in Scotland Neck! The sun was shining, the birds were vocalizing their presence, and the air was filled with a sense of wonder as we explored this incredible park. From the moment we stepped outside of the…
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Making Room for River Cane
On Oct. 19th, our eager SWC crew was assigned the task of removing woody invasives to give a small patch of river cane more sun to create a beachhead to support additional growth. Due to the thick brush, our small crew was perfect. Celia, the park’s activities director, explained the importance of this native plant to…
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Best One Yet! Kids in Nature Day 2025
It was a grand day at Lake Benson Park on Oct. 4th, as SWC held its fourth annual Kids in Nature Day! The weather was perfect, and kids got to explore 25 different nature activities, including nine with live animals. There were birds of prey, arachnids, insects (including bees), reptiles, amphibians, crustaceans, macroinvertebrates (both aquatic…
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Privet Begone!
SWC joined Wake Audubon on a project today, led by Jim Hunsberger, to tackle the invasives at Carroll Howard Johnson Environmental Education Park in Fuquay Varina. The team uprooted, cut down and treated, or otherwise removed two full tandem-trailer loads of Chinese Privet this morning. There was also a massive Oriental Bittersweet that took several…
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Looking for Clues on the Trail
On a beautiful early-fall afternoon last Saturday, kids enjoyed exploring the trails near the Harris Energy and Environmental Center in New Hill, looking for signs of wildlife. As part of the SWC Eco Kids Program, Bonnie Eamick, Environmental Educator, led a group of inquisitive kids along the wooded trails and along a dry creekbed in…
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Tales from the Trail
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…
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A Fun Night of Discovery
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…
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Stilt Grass Demolition Team
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…
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A Good Day at Mud Day
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…
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A Non-Trivial Trivia Night!
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…
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Discoveries on the Trail
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…
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Starting the Day with a Native Plant Garden Cleanup
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…
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Community Partnerships at Work!
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…
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A Day at the Lake
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…
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Nature’s Engineers are Popular!
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…
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An Evening with the Chimney Swifts
Approximately fifty people of all ages, some coming from as far away as Chapel Hill and Dunn, joined SWC to learn about the fascinating biology and habits of chimney swifts, as they gathered to roost in the nearly-100-year-old chimney at the old Fuquay Varina Middle School. This nightly spectacle is fun to watch and provides…
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Plants Galore!
SWC and Simple Gifts Community Garden joined forces again to hold the SWC Native Plant Sale together with the Open House at the garden Saturday morning. The community came out in force, with an estimated 150-200 people attending this joint event. The seventeen species of plants were very popular, with the majority sold within the…
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South Wake Conservationists 