Conservation Commission Past Events

Saturday February 25, 2023, Fitch Family Farm, Dingleton Hill, Cornish NH
13 trackers explored the Fitch Family Farm woods with environmental educator and soil scientist Martha Mitchell. 2 hours later, we’d seen few fresh tracks because non-hibernating animals were hunkered down to conserve energy until the cold and snowy weather cleared.
But during those 2 hours, Martha engaged us with her observations of the winter behavior of foxes, deer and porcupines, how the quality and depth of good soil dictates whether or not a tree produces a tap root, how you can read the scars on tree roots which indicate the movement of the tree’s trunk and root mass during turbulent winds, how important is the water/aquifer recharging system flowing through the forest…and more. We were fascinated.

For more about the walk, read Jody Schubert’s commentary in the CONSERVATION NOTES section, and Mammal Tracks and Scat Life-Size Tracking Guide, co-authored by Lynn Levine and Martha Mitchell.