One year ago, June 11, 2014, the Natural Areas Notebook launched! As natural areas stewardship staff and volunteers, we experience the special natural areas in Oakland Township parks every day, and we want to share our experiences and insights with you. And we’ve been excited and humbled by your support of this blog and our stewardship efforts in the parks. So I want to say a big thanks to all of our readers, to supportive Parks and Recreation staff/commissioners, to the many volunteers that have attended workdays and bird walks, and to Cam Mannino for her special “This Week at Bear Creek” contributions (and other articles too!).

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When I launched the blog last June I had been Natural Areas Stewardship Manager with Oakland Township Parks for just over a month. At that point I’d already visited some of the far corners of the parks, seen wild lupine and hoary puccoon flowering along the Paint Creek Trail, and had the privilege to interact with many township residents. I kept thinking, “Wow, Oakland Township has some really cool natural areas. Do people realize what treasures are hiding right under their noses?” I knew it wasn’t possible to take every township resident out for a weekly nature hike (though that would be pretty awesome…), so I decided a blog would be a good alternative to share glimpses of beautiful wildflowers, secretive wildlife, and stewardship work to entice you to join our efforts in protecting and restoring our natural areas.

So I clicked a few buttons, registered the domain name, chose a name, and voila! A blog was born. Blog readership has grown steadily, and over the past year we’ve had over 5000 views and 2600 visitors from all over the world!

Highlights

Some of the highlights I’ve enjoyed from the last year include:

1. Working with our Parks staff, stewardship crew, and volunteers
   • Thanks to the SE Michigan Student Conservation Crew
   • Bear Creek Volunteer Workday a Success!
   • Let’s talk natural areas stewardship tomorrow at Goodison Good Tyme!
   • Natural Areas Stewardship Thanksgiving: Thank You!
2. Learning about the unique prairie habitats along the Paint Creek Trail
   • What’s Flowering? Lupine and Puccoon along the Paint Creek Trail
   • Milkweed Fireworks
   • Prairie Flowers: A Changing Mosaic of Color
   • Grass-of-Parnassus flowering at the Wet Prairie
   • Prescribed Fire
3. Working to bring native plants and wildlife back to degraded areas in our parks. I’m excited to see the plants and wildlife that benefit in the next few years!
   • USFWS Partners for Fish and Wildlife Grant Jumpstarts Prairie Restoration!
   • Prairie Restoration Part 1: Preparing the Site
   • Grassland Restoration
   • Making space for native plants at the Paint Creek Trail Art Project
4. Fun surprises along the way
   • I Spy: the Frog that Caught My Eye
   • Insect Intrigue at Cranberry Lake Park
   • I almost didn’t see this predator until it was too late!
5. A volunteer Park Steward that wants to write blog posts! When stewardship work needs to get done, I don’t always have the time I need to post on the blog. Cam Mannino’s great pictures and fun narrative help me look at Bear Creek Nature Park with fresh eyes each week. Thanks Cam!
   • New Weekly Feature! Check out “This Week at Bear Creek”
   • This Week at Bear Creek: Bear Creek Begins to Bloom
   • I just want to link to all of Cam’s posts, but you’ll have to check them out yourself!

Feedback Wanted!

Let us know how we’re doing! What do you think about the blog? What would you like to see more? What would you like to eliminate? Is the website easy to navigate? If you have comments or suggestions, please let us know!