News
Lucy News
It's another busy season at Lucy and as always we have lots of great things going on. First, we would like to welcome Pete Mogren as our new turf specialist. He's already making encouraging progress. Lucy is fortunate to have several miles of hiking trails adjacent to our ...
Valley Creek
As soon as you see it, you know that Valley Creek is special. Its waters flow as clear as glass, cold and fast all year long. It supports a healthy and self-sustaining trout population and is home to at least 20 rare and threatened species. There aren’t many streams ...
Belwin Conservancy part of Breeding Bird Survey
The woodland forests located in the St. Croix River valley provide a key north–south migration corridor and offer habitat for a suite of wildlife species identified by scientists as needing enhanced attention and action to preserve their habitat needs. The Belwin Conservancy, Aubudon Minnesota, Great River Greening, Washington Conservation ...
Bison Update
The bison returned to the Belwin Conservancy for 2010 on Saturday, June 19th. For the previous two summers, the bison have added an unmistakable richness to our prairies. They have also brought thousands of people to the Belwin Conservancy, many for the first time. We are eager to build on ...
Director's Message
David Hartwell, the chair of the Belwin Conservancy board, recently gave me a book titled, 1491. It chronicles the history of land use in the Americas prior to European colonization. It’s a very interesting account of how mankind, irrespective of time period or geographical locale has long sought to ...
Secondary Students Now Regular Visitors to Valley Branch ELC
This year Valley Branch ELC launched a new curriculum for secondary school students. Over 400 junior and senior high students visited Valley Branch as part of their biology, chemistry or earth science classes. It was a great success and next year we plan to host over 1,000 secondary students ...
Director's Message
We just finished rounding up the bison herd for their trip back to Wisconsin. It was a pleasure to have the 30 bulls we had this year. Hundreds of people were able to see them wander through the prairie from the observation platform that you, members of the Belwin Conservancy ...
Valley Branch ELC Welcomes its new Education Director
My career has been dedicated to education, science and language. I first learned my love of teaching children while working at the Bell Museum of Natural History for four years. My favorite part was guiding tours through the museum where elementary students were a pack of wolves chasing me, the ...
Lucy News
We had another wonderful year at Lucy with a record number of games, tournaments and visitors. In April we kicked off the season hosting the US Youth Soccer Minnesota State Cup. Record numbers of kids from 6 to 16 attended the Twins Community Fund baseball Clinic hosted early in May ...
Sweet Clover
It has been said that every plant has its year and that every year has its plant. In that case, I would call this the year of sweet clover. Sweet clover (yellow: Melilotus officinalis and white: Melilotus alba) is native to Europe and was brought to the U.S. in ...
Oak Savanna Update
The ongoing oak savanna restoration at our Lake Edith Site took a big step forward this summer, when over 4,000 tons of woody debris, produced as by-product of the restoration, was ground up and hauled away. The material was taken and used as biomass fuel in the District Energy ...
Joseph J. Casby Memorial Observatory Under Construction
We are thrilled to announce construction of the new Joseph J. Casby Memorial Observatory adjacent to Belwin Center is underway. We plan to finish construction this winter. When completed, the observatory will permanently house a nine foot long, ten inch refracting telescope – one of the largest in Minnesota. This instrument ...
Bison Return to the Belwin Conservancy
Bison Return to the Belwin Conservancy Afton, Minnesota—June 9, 2009— On Saturday, June 13th, the Belwin Conservancy will release a herd of bison at its nature preserve located in Afton, Minnesota. As they did last year, the bison will spend the summer adding to the diversity of the nonprofit ...
Restoring the Oak Savanna
The Belwin Conservancy’s 1,338–acre preserve plays host to a huge range of plants and animals. The wetlands, woodlands, fens and forests on our land are all part of a unique patchwork of ecosystems that cover this landscape with a bewildering array of diversity. Part of what makes ...
Belwin Conservancy Launches Carbon Sequestration Program
The Belwin Conservancy recently launched an innovative new carbon sequestration program. Via our website you can now make a contribution that will be used to sequester carbon through the restoration of native prairies, oaks savannas and woodlands. Unlike similar programs available online, carbon sequestration done at the Belwin Conservancy will ...