It’s been a joy to spend the first month of spring inspecting the trail at the East Branch Nature Preserve at the Catskills Water Discovery Center, a local Catskills conversation non-profit where I have been a board member and secretary since last fall. Last October, a fellow board member and I walked with Laura Silverman of the Outside Institute, and we identified many plant and tree species on our trail. We developed a list of everything that we found on the trail and spent spring watching all of it slowly wake from its slumber.

This week, we walked with the Catskills Forest Association to identify our tree species and prepare for a Tree Identification event that will be open to the public this year.

The board was contacted last year by the DEC to ask permission to stock brown trout in the East Branch River along our trail, and this week, 750 brown trout were released into the river. In response to this request, we decided to permit fishing in the Preserve. Please feel free to obtain a fishing permit and fish for brown trout. The Preserve is open to the public from dawn to dusk.

The nicest access to the Preserve is from the parking lot at the Catskills Recreation Center. Park at the far right of the lot as you go in, the farthest from the Volley Ball court, and then taking the Becky Manning Trail through CWC property to find the trail. You’ll find this map at the trailhead:

Please look both ways when crossing the Delaware and Ulster railroad that will be starting up its train tours this spring. Dogs should be leashed and please pack out the poop. Poop needs to be packed out so its smell doesn’t deter wildlife. We have a regular hunter on the trail, that could be coyote, or fox, and we would hate for it to move on. Plus we have very active beavers who are taking down trees to build their dam.

It probably doesn’t need mentioning that nature is the only part of life that seems to make sense at the moment, because we are nature itself. Just a half-hour walk on the trail and all my worries dissolve for a short time. I’m proud to be a working naturalist on the East Branch Preserve trail.

This week, we found some spring ephemerals hanging on despite the snow on Monday: a patch of Trout Lilies. Spring ephemerals flower only for a few weeks in spring when the forest canopy has not yet filled in, which makes them so special. This patch was dotted with the lily’s drooping yellow flowers:

And in wonderful news, we have many serviceberry trees, in addition to plenty of fruiting ironwood (hornbeam), crab apple, willow, birch, quaking aspen, dogwood and sumac. We also have invasive species that can be used in many ways: honeysuckle, and knotweed, which is an edible plant rather like rhubarb or celery: a bitter vegetable with lots of fibre.

I have found solace in the trail this week and I wish that for you too. Please join me on the trail. I will post here when I visit, to give you a chance to catch up with me.

And in bigger news, I will be offering my Art x Nature art classes at the Preserve throughout Spring for a donation to the Center. Your donation will help to manage the trail and pay for events and outreach. Please post in the comments section or DM me if you would be interested.

Happy Spring!