Spring walks at Hidden Valley Nature Center

Wed, 05/08/2019 - 3:00pm

Whether birds, bogs, boulders or blooms are of interest, there is something for everyone at Hidden Valley Nature this May.

Hildy Ellis, Coordinator at Knox-Lincoln Soil & Water Conservation District, will lead visitors on a walk along the margins of the kettle hole bog HVNC on May 9th from 10 a.m. to noon.  A 220-foot boardwalk extends into the heart of the wetland, making it possible for visitors to interact with a fascinating, but incredibly delicate ecosystem, and to witness the spring explosion of plant life there.

Wildflowers will be the main focus of a walk on May 11 from 9-11:30 a.m., led by Dan Townsend, a retired professor of biology. In addition to lady-slippers, trillium or rhodora blooming, many smaller but no less spectacular other wildflowers await observation, and trees and shrubs are donning their spring-green foliage while more subtly doing their own reproductive thing.

Rock out at Hidden Valley Nature Center on Sunday, May 12 from 9 a.m. to noon on this guided hike around the preserve with geologist David Pope, author of The Geology of the Pemaquid
Region. The field trip will zero in on HVNC’s fascinating geology, a spectacular piece of Maine landscape.

Finally, join bird expert Jeff Cherry on May 21 from 7-9 a.m. for a morning of bird identification. This will be a short-distance, slow walk to enjoy the recently returned migrant birds of meadow and edge habitat. Jeff will share his knowledge of identifying birds by sight and sound, and other topics of interest to the group such as avian breeding biology, eBird, and the Maine Breeding Bird Atlas project.

For more information on these events, and to register, go to https://www.midcoastconservancy.org/explore/events/ For any questions, feel free to call (207) 389-5150.