Bring your binoculars for birding around the woods, meadow, and ponds of Westmoor Park. Led by Brian Kleinman, Riverside Reptiles Education Center owner and Hartford Audubon Society member. Dress in layers and meet in the parking lot.
Old Forest or Young Meadow – The Marvel of Seeds
A New England Forests film, directed by naturalist, local nature documentary filmmaker, Ray Asselin.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Ray Asselin and Trinity College Professor and Hartford County’s Old Growth Forest Network Coordinator, Susan A. Masino.
Have you ever thought about how, almost magically, a brown, bulldozed piece of land turns green with plants again? How do all those plants get there so quickly? Where did they come from? It’s amazing that nature has developed this process of having new plants always ready to go, in tiny embryonic packages.
Seeds allow us to readily raise crops. They replenish the forests we take down. They make burned habitat or lava-covered ground productive again.
Plants, like all life forms, do not live forever, so they must reproduce. They cast themselves into the future via the seeds they produce, which can wait out poor or impossible growth conditions until such time as conditions become favorable. That could be days, weeks, years, even millennia.
Since the parent plant can’t move around to place seeds here and there, it has to have some other way to get the seeds dispersed. And that’s the subject of the new film, Old Forest or Young Meadow – the Marvel of Seeds.
Plants have evolved over many millions of years. In that time, nature has devised some fascinating methods for them to colonize new sites. Some are rather mundane, but others are intriguing; some are surprising and quite entertaining.
This film describes the evolution of plants on Earth, and features many of the fascinating ways seeds are dispersed. Some are curious, some are downright delightful. Some, we guarantee, you have never witnessed.
All attendees will receive a free packet of seeds donated by the New England Seed Company.
Co-sponsored by: Traprock Ridge Land Conservancy, the Sustainable West Hartford Commission and the New England Seed Company.
Join us at this invasive plant workshop to get hands-on experience clearing invasive plants.
Today we will be working on cutting bittersweet vines out of trees on this 9-acre preserve which boasts a seasonal waterfall.
Bring loppers and water, and dress for the woods with long pants, long sleeves, boots and work gloves.
Park at the lot at 180 Life Church across the street at 180 Still Road.
RSVP to conservation@trlandconservancy.org if you are interested in helping so that you can be contacted in case of changes or cancellations.
Stout Family Fields is one of our most visited preserves; if you haven’t been yet, spring is a great time to check it out. Over the past three years, TRLC volunteers spent more than 100 hours clearing invasives from around the wetland copse (The Island) in the southern field. In 2024, we planted native species there and in 2025, we hired a contractor to remove invasives from the banks of the brook between the two fields. Last year, we also planted sycamore seedlings from the Pinchot Sycamore on The Island.
Today we will be clearing multiflora rose and common buckthorn from within the wetland copse in the southern field.
A small chain saw will help; otherwise, bring loppers and/or clippers. Bring water and dress for the woods with long pants, long sleeves, boots and work gloves.
RSVP to conservation@trlandconservancy.org if you are interested in helping so that you can be contacted in case of changes or cancellations.
In honor of Arbor Day, we will be clearing brush and small trees from around the trees along the Notable Tree Trail at Hawk Hill Farm. The trail, introduced in Spring 2025, features 9 trees including 5 notable trees, along with educational signage.
Bring water and loppers, hand saws (and chain saws if you have them), and dress for the woods with long pants, long sleeves, boots, work gloves.
Please RSVP to conservation@trlandconservancy.org if you are interested in helping so that you can be contacted in case of changes or cancellations.
In honor of Earth Day, we will be working with Environmental Science Professor Dr. Kirsten Martin and her students to remove invasive Callery and Bradford pear trees from the grassland habitat there and weed the pollinator garden. Bring loppers and hand saws, and dress for poison ivy and ticks. Park in the lot on the west side of campus closest to Trout Brook Drive.
Please RSVP to conservation@trlandconservancy.org if you are interested in helping so that you can be contacted in case of changes or cancellations.
Also visit the TRLC table at St Joseph’s Earth Day Fair, April 22 from 11am-2pm. The fair will be held in front of McDonough Hall (inside McDonough if it rains).
Featuring a Presentation on Automated Mapping of Beaver Activity and Its Environmental Impacts in CT
Members and guests are invited to our Annual Meeting featuring a presentation by Evan Zocco, a Ph.D. student at the University of Connecticut’s Department of Natural Resources and the Environment.
Evan will talk about the ways in which beavers change the landscape, and his development of advanced computer methods for environmental monitoring using drone imagery. The results of his research have valuable implications for wetland mapping, ecosystem monitoring, and decision-making in land and water resource management.
After the presentation, we invite you to stay to learn more about the work of protecting the environment, preserving local farms and connecting people with nature. You will also be able to meet the board of directors who will report on activities and finances and answer your questions. Current TRLC members will elect directors to the board for the next term. Light refreshments will be served.
As an early Earth Day celebration, we will be picking up accumulated trash from Privilege Preserve in Bloomfield. Parking is on the road apron across from 68 East Dudley Town Road. Trash bags will be provided.
Note: Bloomfield will not be holding their official trash cleanup day this year, so this an opportunity to participate in a community cleanup event.
RSVP to conservation@trlandconservancy.org if you are interested in helping so that you can be contacted in case of changes or cancellations.
Join master naturalist Brad Robinson for a hike at Wilcox Park in honor of Earth Day. The park is on Hoskins Road one mile south of Tariffville Road and a half mile north of Adams Road. We will ascend to the ridgeline where we join the Metacomet Trail and hike in a loop back to the parking lot. There are nice views along a lesser-traveled area of the Metacomet ridge. The hike should take about two hours and will involve some hilly terrain. Meet at the Wilcox Park parking lot at 10 a.m. Rain date is Sunday April 19 at 2 p.m.
Join us at this invasive plant workshop to get hands-on experience clearing invasive plants and help us in the effort to replace invasives with native species in our community.
Stout Family Fields is one of our most visited preserves; if you haven’t been yet, spring is a great time to check it out. Over the past three years, TRLC volunteers spent more than 100 hours clearing invasives from around the wetland copse (The Island) in the southern field. In 2024, we planted native species there and in 2025, we hired a contractor to remove invasives from the banks of the brook between the two fields. Last year, we also planted sycamore seedlings from the Pinchot Sycamore on The Island.
On this day we will be removing the remaining invasives left between the fields before our contractor plants more native species there this spring. Bring water, loppers and work gloves, and wear long pants, long-sleeved shirts, bug spray and sunscreen. Park at the end of Stone Hill Road.
RSVP to conservation@trlandconservancy.org if you are interested in helping so that you can be contacted in case of changes or cancellations.