Left: Students Katie McGee and Peyton Stevens monitor a nest of Savannah sparrow chicks in the field across from the Shelburne Farms Inn. Right: A Savannah sparrow chick. Photos by Sarah Webb.
Research: Monitoring Grassland Birds in Our Hayfields & Pastures
The Bobolink Odyssey is back at Shelburne Farms for its twenty-first research season, studying the life histories of Bobolinks and Savannah Sparrows that nest in the hayfields. Shelburne Farms is proud to support this research and to have learned ways to manage our fields and pastures for the survival of grassland birds.
Professor Noah Perlut and students from the University of New England and University of Vermont are busy finding and monitoring nests, banding adult birds and chicks, and deploying three types of tracking devices, including nanotags that are detected by theMotus tower on a barn at our dairy. (The collected data is then publicly available to researchers.) The nanotag project is the second year of a regional effort: the team also deployed nanotags on grassland birds at the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge, and collaborators deployed tags in southeastern Pennsylvania and central Maine. So far, this seems to be an average or slightly above average year for avian reproductive success!
The 2022 Northeast Farm to School Institute and Adapters gather for a group photo during their summer kickoff retreat at Shelburne Farms' Coach Barn. Photo by Sarah Webb.
Northeast Farm to School Institute Summer Retreat
This July, over 70 educators, school nutrition staff, school administrators, and community partners gathered at the Coach Barn with a lofty goal: to better support their students in understanding where their food comes from and connect to their local food system.
Vermont FEED’s* Northeast Farm to School Institute has built enduring farm to school programs in over 120 schools, districts, and early childhood programs. School teams of 5–7 members kickoff the year-long program with an intensive at Shelburne Farms to build an action plan and explore the joy and depth of connecting the 3C’s: Classroom, Cafeteria, and Community. Some workshops included: “Bringing Students on Farm- and Dairy-Based Field Trips”, “The Nuts and Bolts of Integrating Local Food into Your Menu”, and a masterclass in storytelling with Ferene Paris Meyer, founder of All Heart Inspirations.
New to 2022, we launched a first-ever Institute Adaptation Program, a partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service. Representatives from teams in Arkansas, Nebraska, Connecticut, Oregon and Washington will strengthen school communities in their regions by adapting this Vermont-born model for their states!
Sarah Smith, Nebraska Department of Education Farm to School Coordinator, was part of the team that launched Nebraska’s first virtual Institute last year, and was at the kickoff retreat to prepare for the state’s first in-person program. “Having [the program] already laid out with research-based curricular components and stories of success behind it made it easy to build a case and get buy-in from my state. It isn’t to say I don’t have a million questions right now, but I know I have a million less thanks to Vermont FEED! Everything we did was based on the Vermont model, including coaching and it really just made everything feasible for us.”
Summer campers harvest ripe berries in preparation for a delicious snack. Photo by Andrea Estey.
Summer Campers!
Campers rule the farm! Or at least, they have the run of it. Because that’s what our camps are all about: exploring this place, discovering hidden, or maybe not so hidden places, and having fun learning all the ways our lives depend on farms, soil, and the natural world. Right now, berry season is in full swing, so kids have been harvesting raspberries and blueberries to make delicious parfaits (think berries, crushed graham crackers, and maple whipped cream). One camper confessed, "We were supposed to eat one-quarter and save three-quarters, but it ended up more like half eating, half picking." We understand.
In addition to berry-picking (and consuming), campers are spoiling our farm animals with brushing and bathing (we call it the “spa treatment”), uncovering what’s alive on the forest floor and in the pond, and putting their culinary skills to work in the Market Garden to make deliciously fresh snacks and meals from what’s just ripening in our fields. There’s downtime and uptime and everything in between. It’s summer, after all. We hope you can get out and enjoy it like a Shelburne Farms camper, and connect to whatever patch of earth you call home.
The final dish: berry parfaits with graham crackers, maple whipped cream, and freshly picked berries! Photo by Andrea Estey.
