Hike the Avery Preserve
2020-02-22 10:00 (America/New_York) | Avery Preserve, 55-35 Avery Hill Rd, Ledyard, CT, 06339, United States
An Avalonia representative will take us through the Avery Preserve which features a maple swamp, open upland woods, and Atlantic white cedar. This hike is cosponsored by Ledyard Library and Avalonia Land Conservancy and consists of two to three miles. Please wear proper hiking attire.
Park on East tract off Avery Hill Road.
This is a Hike & Seek property. See clues to discover here.

Great Avalonia Trail Trek 2020
2020-10-17 - 2020-10-25
Do you want to help save land? Do you like getting a good workout in? If you answered yes to both of those questions, then you should sign up for the Great Avalonia Trail Trek! The Great Avalonia Trail Trek is a week-long fundraiser from Saturday, October 17 to Sunday, October 25 that will give you the chance to raise money for Avalonia while enjoying our beautiful preserves. The money raised at the Great Avalonia Trail Trek will support Avalonia’s land conservation and stewardship efforts, including helping us reach our fundraising goal for the TriTown Forest Preserve.
See details and register

Leo Antonino Preserve Family Hike
2022-06-05 13:30 - 14:30 | Leo Antonino Preserve, 0 Antonino Road, Groton, CT, United States
Date: Sunday, June 5
Time: 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm
Hike Leaders: Janet Anderson and Robert Volkmann

Join us for family-friendly hike celebrating CT Trails Day at the Leo Antonino Preserve in Groton. The trail travels through mature woods, along vernal pools and active brooks, and near erratics and upthrust sections of granite. Parts are rocky and rooty with elevation changes.

REGISTER HERE

TriTown Forest Preserve Hike
2022-06-05 15:00 - 17:00 | TriTown Forest Preserve, 91 Miller Road, North Stonington, CT, United States
Sunday, June 5
Time: 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Hike Leader: Stephen Colgan

Join us for a leisurely 2.5 mile hike in the TriTown Forest Preserve. We will follow the yellow trail which is generally flat but does have some short climbs and descents. If you look on the All Trails App, the trail is listed there as the TriTown Fenway Trail.

REGISTER HERE

Hike Cedar Wood Preserve
2023-06-03 11:00 - 12:30 | Cedar Wood Preserve, 180 North Wawecus Hill Rd., Norwich, CT, 06360, United States
CT TRAILS DAY EVENT:
This year, Avalonia’s is hosting three events during the annual Connecticut Trails Day event.
This hike is at one of Avalonia’s newest acquisitions and only Norwich property, Cedar Wood Preserve —47 acres of field, woods, and water. This 1.4-mile hike goes through an upper trail with open fields and good birding opportunities and through a lower forested trail. This will be a moderate hike with some hills/slopes and a narrow, somewhat precarious path crossing a dam in the forested section. As funding becomes available, Avalonia plans to create maximum accessibility on the mostly flat upper trail.
Avalonia is hosting this adventure, but please register on the CT TRAILS DAY website. Registration opens May 10th.

Accessibility Note
Parking: Off-street lot with room for about 4 cars. Lot is located at trailhead. Accessible space. Parking available on side of road.
Trails: Long entry bridge with ramps not yet installed. Initial area has some rocky spots, but most upper trails are grassy and at least 4 feet wide, with some dips and slopes. Some protrusions. Lower forested trails are hilly with numerous protrusions and tripping hazards.
Communication: This walk will be amplified.
Avalonia Accessibility Statement
Accessibility point person: Mary Anne Sherman (860) 884-3500 or avalonialc@yahoo.com

Double Stroll Through The Herman E. Sheets Family Forest
2023-06-03 13:00 - 15:00 | Sheets Family Forest, Puttker Road, North Stonington, CT, United States
CT TRAILS DAY EVENT:
This year, Avalonia’s is hosting three events during the annual Connecticut Trails Day event.
This event is an adventure at The Herman E. Sheets Family Forest, an 87-acre picturesque preserve that lies adjacent to the Green Fall River which opened last year. It’s a mixed forest with ponds and brooks to be crossed by bridges.
The hike will start out on the yellow trail (south loop). After about 0.75 miles, folks may continue on the south loop to complete an easier 1.4-mile hike, while others may take the red trail (north loop) which will result in a moderate 2.8-mile hike. There will be leaders for both of these options.
Avalonia is hosting this adventure, but please register on the CT TRAILS DAY website. Registration opens May 10th.

Accessibility Note
Parking: Grassy off-street lot with room for about 6 cars. No accessible space. Location is adjacent to trailhead. On-street parking.
Trails: Narrow, steep, compacted soil, with some protrusions.
Communication: No communication aids or services scheduled for this walk.
Avalonia Accessibility Statement
Accessibility point person: Mary Anne Sherman (860) 884-3500 or avalonialc@yahoo.com

Beavers, Bird Calls, and Brilliant Bugs
2023-06-04 10:00 - 12:00 | Babcock Ridge, 113 Babcock Road, North Stonington, CT, United States
CT TRAILS DAY EVENT:
This year, Avalonia’s is hosting three events during the annual Connecticut Trails Day event.
Join Avalonia naturalist Bruce Fellman for this special family-friendly exploration of two adjoining refuges (Babcock Ridge and D.R. Henne Memorial & Shunock Brook Preserves), which are among the Conservancy’s most ecologically diverse preserves. Accompanying us on this gentle, two-mile hike is sign-language interpreter Joy Valenti, who’s experienced in making nature accessible to the D/deaf/hard of hearing community. In addition to ASL interpretation, this hike will use amplification to ensure hikers can hear Bruce’s information and guidance.
We’ll comb the uplands for its array of wildflowers, amphibians, reptiles, and colorful songbirds and see how to convert bird calls into accessible sound prints. We’ll also examine the beaver-created wetlands, home to a large and thriving Great Blue Heron rookery and an abundance of dragonflies and butterflies, and learn, first hand, how these “eager” rodents have transformed local habitats throughout North America. This is a typical woodland trail, with some rocks and roots. It is up-and-down terrain, not flat but not steep; fairly wide, allowing for walking two abreast.
Meet leader and veteran naturalist Bruce Fellman at 113 Babcock Road (0.9 miles from Wyassup Road or 0.8 miles from Route 49). The parking area is on the north side of the road. The trailhead for the Babcock part of the walk is here; the trailhead for the Henne walk is nearby.
Rain postpones to June 3, 10:30 AM. For more information, visit the CTFPA’s website. The event is part of National Trails Day, which in Connecticut is coordinated by the CT Forest and Park Association.
Avalonia is hosting this adventure, but please register on the CT TRAILS DAY website. Registration opens May 10th. Pre-registration is recommended and can be done by contacting walk leader Bruce Fellman at (860) 599-4867 or fellnature@sbcglobal.net.
Accessibility Note
Parking: Small off-street lot, packed dirt surface, no accessible space, room for 7-8 cars. Lot located at Babcock Ridge Preserve trailhead about 100 feet from Henne Preserve trailhead. Additional parking available along the road.
Trails: Narrow in spots, some slopes, some protrusions into pathway, occasional wet areas.
Communication: This walk will be amplified and sign language interpreted, and will include live sonograms that provide pictorial representation of birdcalls.
Avalonia Accessibility Statement
Accessibility point person: Mary Anne Sherman (860) 884-3500 or avalonialc@yahoo.com

Explore the Preston Nature Preserve's Field of Natural History Dreams
2023-08-05 10:00 - 12:00 | Preston Nature Preserve, Krug Road, Preston, CT, United States
Explore Preston Nature Preserve’s Field of Natural History Dreams
Don’t be fooled: a natural meadow may look like an unkempt lawn that a lazy homeowner has taken a holiday from mowing, but look closer and you’ll discover an amazing and fascinating array of biological diversity.
The Preston Nature Preserve (PNP) offers explorers a pathway through several interconnected meadows that are at their prettiest in August. On Saturday, August 5th, from 10 a.m. to at least noon, Avalonia naturalist Bruce Fellman will guide visitors on a leisurely tour of the 56-acre refuge’s treasure trove of native plants, insects, and birds that thrive in the fields, as well as in the surrounding woods and wetlands. The botanical star of the meadow show is an expanse of Bee Balm, a native member of the mint family whose showy pink, red, and purple flowers are butterfly, bee, and beetle magnets. If we’re lucky and patient, we’re often blessed with sightings of hummingbird moths, pint-sized hummer mimics that find Bee Balm blooms irresistible—and this is just the tip of the floral iceberg. Joe Pye Weed, goldenrod, native grass, thistle, and aster flowers will also be bringing in the pollinators. The milkweeds, though past their blossom time, will still be attracting Monarch butterflies, whose eggs and leaf-eating caterpillars we’ll seek. Last but hardly least, the PNP banquet usually includes a variety of dragonflies, birds, frogs, and even a deer or two.
Bring binoculars, hand lenses, cameras, notebooks, your natural history curiosity, and, if you have them, your kids and grandkids. Don’t forget the sunscreen, bug spray, water, and a hat—it’s an easy 1.5 mile hike, but it can be bright and hot in the fields. Rain date Sunday August 6. For more information, contact Bruce Fellman, 860-599-4867, or bruce.fellman@yale.edu.
Register Here
Accessibility Note
Parking: Ample off-street lot, grass surface, room for about a dozen cars, no parking space accessible to people with disabilities. Lot located on 38 Krug Road at the PNP trailhead. Additional parking available along Krug Road.
Trails: Mostly mowed grass surface pathways through open meadows, some slopes, wide enough for several people to traverse side-by-side. One quarter-mile stretch of trail through upland woods, hilly and narrow, with some roots and rocks in the pathway, as well as occasional protruding branches.
Communication: This walk will be amplified (Bruce will use a portable microphone system), with sign language interpretation available upon request. It will include sonograms of bird calls that we hear to provide pictorial representations of their songs.
Avalonia Accessibility Statement: https://avalonia.org/accessibility-for-people-with-disabilities-statement/ If you have questions on the accessibility of this event, please call Avalonia at 860-884-3500 or email accessibility@avalonia.org.

Photo credit: Bruce Fellman

Vernal Pool Adventure at Babcock Ridge - CANCELLED
2024-04-03 18:00 - 20:00 | Babcock Ridge, 113 Babcock Road, North Stonington, CT, United States
CANCELLED DUE TO WIND AND RAIN. NEW DATE TBD.

There’s no better way to celebrate the arrival of spring than to visit a woodland pond alive with the sights and sounds of newly awakened amphibians and invertebrates — and there’s no more exciting time to do so than at dusk when the local vernal pools are a noisy chorus of quacking wood frogs and bell-ringing spring peepers. As the skies darken, we’ll follow our ears for about a half-mile hike to the center of the Babcock Ridge Preserve where a dry hole last autumn is now a rain-soaked “wicked big puddle.”
This brimful temporary pond is a wetland nursery filled with a variety of exciting creatures. In addition to frogs, we’ll likely see marbled salamander youngsters, fairy shrimp, giant predaceous diving beetles, and the stars of the show, the exquisite yellow-spotted salamanders. We’ll use nets to collect pond residents and examine them at close range before releasing them unharmed, and if we’re especially lucky, we might also hear the booming hoots of barred owls and the peents of woodcock.
Bring a flashlight and a headlamp, wear warm clothes and waterproof boots, and don’t forget your spirit of adventure and curiosity on this family-friendly exploration of a fascinating part of the natural world.
Walk leader Bruce Fellman has been introducing people to vernal pool life for almost half-a-century. For more information, contact the leader at bruce.fellman@yale.edu or 860-599-4867.
To register for the adventure, which is free and open to the public but limited to 25 people, click on the link below. This program tends to fill up quickly, but If there’s sufficient interest, we’ll try to schedule additional walks. Note: heavy rain will postpone to Thursday, the 21st, same time, but light rain will be just perfect for bringing out the critters — and raincoat-clad naturalists.

REGISTER HERE

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Accessibility Note
Parking: Small off-street lot, packed dirt surface, no accessible space, room for 7-8 cars. Lot located at Babcock Ridge Preserve trailhead. Additional parking available along the road.
Trails: Narrow in spots, some slopes, some protrusions into pathway, occasional wet areas. Off-pathway walking through open woods to vernal pool. Sampling for organisms involves dip-netting and getting hands wet. The hike back to the parking area takes place in the dark and is illuminated by flashlights and headlamps.
Communication: This walk will be amplified and may include live sonograms that provide pictorial representation of frog and bird calls.
Avalonia Accessibility Statement: https://avalonia.org/accessibility-for-people-with-disabilities-statement/
Accessibility point person: Mary Anne Sherman, 860-884-3500 or avalonialc@yahoo.com

Honoring Earth Day with a Wild Flora Walk at the Benedict Benson Preserve
2024-04-21 10:00 - 12:00 | Benedict Benson Preserve, Swantown Hill Road, North Stonington, CT, 06359, United States
Led by Avalonia naturalist Bruce Fellman, trek through the Benedict Benson Preserve to watch its uplands, centerpiece stream, and wetlands come to life with greening ferns, mosses, and wildflowers, from the rare Hepatica to the ubiquitous marsh marigolds.
REGISTER HERE

One of the critical precursors of the passage of the Clean Water Act, the landmark federal legislation whose 50 years of making a difference was celebrated in 2022, is Earth Day, the consciousness-raising holiday for the planet that began in 1970. As part of Avalonia’s ongoing tribute to the CWA, join naturalist and guide Bruce Fellman as we wade into moving waters, figuratively, if not literally, at the Benedict Benson Preserve on Sunday, April 21, shortly after Earth Day, from 10 a.m. until noon, in North Stonington to watch the refuge’s wetlands and its centerpiece stream come to life: a tribute to wise stewardship.
In keeping with our theme, we’ll pay close attention to the area around Lantern Brook, a delightful woodland stream that flows through the heart of the preserve and is wonderfully photogenic as it tumbles down a boulder field left behind by the glaciers that shaped this land. The area around the brook is paradise for botanists interested in mosses, ferns, lichens, and wildflowers, and while there are certain to be such stalwarts as Wood anemones, a number of violets, and Marsh marigolds in bloom, there’s one botanical gem known as the hepatica that we’ll scramble up a favored hillside to seek out. Hepaticas thrive in specific, rather “sweet” soil conditions unusual in our woods, but Benson has the right stuff in one area.
The Preserve features a typical Southern New England post-agricultural-abandonment upland forest dominated by oaks, beeches, birches, and hickories, many of them fully mature. Some are home to striking Pileated Woodpeckers, while others support a wide array of hardwood-forest songbirds, the most intriguing of which is the Cerulean Warbler. This stunning bird, which is listed as a Species of Special Concern in Connecticut, has been seen and heard at Benson and the surrounding area, and is one of the treasures we’ll be looking for as we walk the approximately mile and a half trail system in search of signs of spring.
The trailhead for the Benedict Benson Preserve is located at 100 Swantown Hill Road in North Stonington. A small parking area is on the West side of the road and there’s more parking on either side of Swantown. For more information and to register, visit the Events Calendar of Avalonia’s website: avalonia.org/events/ Please note: parts of the trail are pretty rugged, so while my pace is always family-friendly, the terrain, particularly our scramble up a rocky hillside in search of wildflowers, might not be suitable for small kids and the occasional elder. You’ll want to wear waterproof hiking boots, and trekking poles might be a good idea, too. Bring water and an energy bar, and, of course, binoculars and cameras. Don’t hesitate to call or email: 860-599-4867, or fellnature@sbcglobal.net.
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Accessibility Note
Avalonia Accessibility Statement: https://avalonia.org/accessibility-for-people-with-disabilities-statement/
Accessibility point person: Mary Anne Sherman, 860-884-3500 or avalonialc@yahoo.com

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The featured image is by Jodi Williams taken at Benedict Benson Preserve. Jodi received an Honorable Mention in the Wildflowers category in Avalonia’s 2023 Photo Contest.

Hike a Wildlife Habitat Restoration at Leo Antonino Preserve
2024-06-01 10:00 - 12:00 | Leo Antonino Preserve, 0 Antonino Road, Groton, CT, United States
CT TRAILS DAY EVENT:
We’ll hike the Leo Antonino Preserve through forested areas, past active brooks, vernal pools, and up a bedrock ridge. There is a go-around for those who want to avoid the scramble up the ridge. We will pass next to erratics deposited by the glaciers and see how the Earth’s crust has been folded and lifted in Connecticut’s geologic history. The hike will end at the parking area if you choose not to explore the habitat restoration.
At about 11:00, we will walk a short way on the preserve from parking to an area of a multi-year project where invasives have been removed to make way for establishment of wildlife habitat. Charlie Boos, an expert in habitat restoration that emphasizes protection of existing beneficial natives and ensuring biodiversity, will be leading this portion of the event. You will see the progression from thickets of autumn olive to “bunny piles” and thriving grasses and native pollinators including a pond that was unreachable until this project. You can join this part of the event if you choose not to participate in the 10:00 hike.

Follow this link to RSVP:
RSVP HERE

A Near-Earth-Day Wildflower, Amphibian, and Early Returning Songbirds Saunter at Benedict Benson Preserve
2025-04-27 10:00 - 12:00 | Benedict Benson Preserve, Swantown Hill Road, North Stonington, CT, 06359, United States
The Benson Preserve, a typical Southern New England post-agricultural-abandonment upland forest dominated by oaks, beeches, birches, and hickories, features many mature trees, some of them home to Pileated Woodpeckers, as well as to a wide array of hardwood forest songbirds, the most intriguing of which is the Cerulean Warbler. This stunning bird, which is listed as a Species of Special Concern in Connecticut, has been seen and heard at Benson and the surrounding area, and is one of the treasures we’ll be looking for as we walk the approximately mile and a half trail system in search of signs of spring: everything from Wood Frogs and Spring Peepers to Mourning Cloak butterflies and the rare Spotted Turtles that I’ve, well, spotted here.
We’ll pay especially close attention to the area around Lantern Brook, a delightful woodland stream that flows through the heart of the preserve and is wonderfully photogenic as it tumbles down a boulder field left behind by the glaciers that shaped this land. The area around the brook is paradise for botanists interested in mosses, ferns, lichens, and wildflowers, and while there are certain to be such stalwarts as Wood Anemones, a number of violets, and Marsh Marigolds in bloom, there’s one botanical gem known as the hepatica that we’ll scramble up a favored hillside to seek out. Hepaticas thrive in specific, rather “sweet” soil conditions unusual in our woods, but Benson has the right stuff in one area. Spotting hepaticas, which are among our earliest wild blossoms, is cause for celebration—and at Benson, there’s always something special to celebrate.
Accessibility Note
Parking: Small lot off Swantown Hill Road (approximately 101 Swantown Hill Road)) at the start of the Benedict Benson main trail. Lot with packed dirt surface, no accessible space, room for 6 cars. Additional parking available along the road.
Trails: Narrow in spots, numerous slopes, some protrusions into pathway, occasional wet areas, and occasional off-trail walking. Two stream crossings over small wooden bridges with no handrails, one with fairly steep stone steps.
Communication: This walk will be amplified.

Avalonia Accessibility Statement: https://avalonia.org/accessibility-for-people-with-disabilities-statement/
Accessibility point person: Mary Anne Sherman, 860-884-3500 or avalonialc@yahoo.com

Registration
Fill out my LGL Form!
