Before beginning my volunteer stewardship work, I’d spent most of my life as a “tree person.” I still am, of course. Who can resist those graceful giants of the plant world?

I grew up here in Oakland Township surrounded by farm fields and I still love the smooth, green orderliness of tilled and tended soil. But nature always prefers variety and these days, I find that I do too! My years volunteering in Oakland Township have expanded my vision of what’s beautiful in nature. I’ve come to appreciate wild, native meadows full of different shades and sizes of grasses and splashed with the color of wildflowers. That’s why I want to share with you the transformation of aging farm fields into young grassland meadows now being re-created at Watershed Ridge Park.

First Comes the Vision

Our Natural Areas Stewardship Manager, Dr. Ben VanderWeide, understood that populations of grassland birds were rapidly declining. According to an article in the Audubon magazine, the 2025 State of the Birds report shows that, while the numbers of most American birds are in decline, grassland bird populations have sunk 43% since 1970. Their dwindling numbers result from a lack of habitat and fragmentation of the small amount of grasslands left. That’s what Ben is trying to address at Watershed Ridge Park.

So who are these grassland birds that we want to help? Which birds would we expect to see if a healthy grassland habitat takes hold at Watershed Ridge? Here’s a sampling of the possibilities. Our gifted photographer friend, Bob Bonin, provided all but two of the photos in the slideshow below and they’re remarkable. Thank you, Bob!

The hedgerows were an issue at Watershed Ridge. They were cluttered with invasive trees and shrubs like Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) and Common Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica), as well as some Black Walnuts (Julgans nigra, a favorite farm tree) and Box Elder (Acer negundo), an aggressive spreader with its abundance of winged seed pods (samaras). Invasive vines like non-native Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) hung from tree branches and grew through the hedgerows, and pesky invasives like Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) covered the ground. The crew wanted to eliminate these aggressive plants from the edges of the new grassland to prevent them from moving farther into the fields once they were planted with native seed.

Here in the eastern part of North America, these grassland birds need wide open spaces with grasses and some wildflowers. They avoid fields with hedgerows or too many shrubs or trees. Why? The main reason is predators! They are wary of foxes, raccoons, snakes, or other predators hiding in the hedgerows. They also want to avoid hawks descending on them quickly from nearby trees and shrubs. So they seek out big, open, grassy meadows in which to nest and forage.

Many grassland birds need a minimum grassland size before they’ll consider breeding there. With the hedgerows, our two 5 acre fields and one 10 acre field were seen as separate habitats, often too small for even less sensitive grassland birds, like field sparrows and vesper sparrows, looking for a good nesting spot. With the hedgerows removed, we hope that some grassland birds will now see a 20 acre grassland as adequate space to safely nest.

Preparing the Site

For years, farmers had rented this acreage from our Parks and Recreation Commission, keeping the fields themselves, if not the hedgerows, largely free from invasives. Knowing the urgent need for grassland habitat, and in coordination with the recent trail network expansion at this park, Ben determined that now was the time to transform these fields from row crops to twenty acres of healthy grassland for birds, pollinators and wildlife.

Ben and our township Stewardship Specialist, Grant Vanderlaan, along with help from folks at Six Rivers Land Conservancy, started the process last year, taking down a north-south hedgerow that separated two fields. This year, they took on the long east-west hedgerow. First, the trees and shrubs were felled. Grant then operated the CAT track loader, grasping the logs and moving them into piles outside the project site.

Then the bulldozer arrived. Our township Maintenance Foreman, Doug Caruso has a lot of experience with heavy equipment. Ben says it’s great working with him, because “you give him the vision and he makes it happen.” He and the rented bulldozer fully removed the hedgerows, connected the fields and then smoothed them out for later planting with native seed.

Some stumps were cut to ground level and covered with soil. Doug pulled up a few trees by the roots (see above right.) Ben hopes to restore what may earlier have been wetlands but were drained and filled by farmers years ago. The crew found drainage tiles within the wet areas that evidently diverted runoff and ground water into the woods. That might explain why a vernal pool in the nearby woodland always looks cloudy! Some of the tree roots will be placed in the wet areas; if the water gets deep enough in the low wet areas beneath the slopes, the roots can serve as attachment sites for amphibian eggs or perching spots for the grassland birds, frogs, turtles, whatever.

Meanwhile…the Seed was Gathered and Cleaned

All summer and fall, the stewardship team, including a crew of dedicated seed-gathering volunteers and Ben, Grant, and our summer stewardship techs, collected a HUGE amount of native seed! A small volunteer group, headed by George Hartsig, also headed out weekend after weekend and many days in between, carefully collecting seed from our parks and natural areas, leaving enough behind so that each plant could propagate in place next year.

Gathering native seed ourselves allows the township to plant a large area like this project with locally-grown, healthy seed at almost no cost. Native seed is labor intensive; that’s why it’s usually relatively expensive. And seed from some native plant species is just not available to be purchased. So the volunteers are helping the Parks budget and making our prairie plantings more diverse, a huge benefit to natural areas and the wildlife in them.

On November 20 and 21, a large group of volunteers showed up to do the final cleaning of the seed. George had invented some clever ways to remove seedheads from their stalks using vacuums and blowers and all kinds of gadgetry. The seedheads were then bagged and labeled by park location, date gathered and species name. They were ready and waiting when the volunteers arrived to remove the seeds by scraping the seedheads against different grades of screen or even picking the tiny seeds off by hand. Twelve large bins stood around the barn, labeled for different kinds of habitats – wet to dry, upland to wetland. The volunteers empty their cleaned seeds into the bin with the appropriate habitat label. And Voilá! We had custom seed mixes, designed by Ben and ready for sowing. Nothing goes to waste in this process; even the chaff is kept to be spread later on the earth, returning its nutrients to the soil.

The pole barn fills with laughter, chatting, and the scratchy sound of gloved hands pushing the seeds through different grades of screen. Snacks and drinks in the next room keep everyone going until the work is done. In the loft upstairs, staff and volunteers weigh the seed and record all the details in the computer – location, gathering date, species name and habitat. Labels are attached to tell volunteers the seed mix destination. It’s quite a detailed process! The result is that we end up with large amounts of native seed to spread in our fields, including the newly developed one just beyond the barn where we were working at Watershed Ridge Park.

This winter or early spring, the seed will be sown directly onto the snow or bare earth in the newly created grassland fields or elsewhere in our parks. Winter’s frost, rains and snows will work the seeds into the ground, just as it’s done for thousands of years with any seed that tumbles to bare ground. Many native seeds actually require cold weather in order to germinate. It will take about three years before many of the species will fully bloom. Native plants spend their first couple of years growing deep roots to sustain the new plants through Michigan’s unpredictable weather.

The goal of this ambitious project is to manage this grassland for the long term. That means periodic mowing and/or burning, since grasslands are dependent on fire. Without it, invasive species, aggressive natives, shrubs and trees will try to move in and get a foothold again. Luckily, this large, open grassland can easily be burned safely and efficiently by Ben, Grant and our hardy group of trained fire volunteers, since the site doesn’t include sloping forests or other features that require paid professionals – another way local nature lovers help out the Parks budget.

For Now, We Wait…

It surprises me that I smile when I see the photo above. So often barren earth bespeaks the absence or destruction of nature. But thanks to having volunteered with the stewardship program, I can enjoy envisioning this big meadow’s possible future. Covered with swaying grasses and dotted with multi-color native wildflowers, it will flutter with butterflies and hum with bees. Grassland birds will light on bending stems and send their songs floating within and across the meadow. Some birds will scurry down in the swaying grass with food for their nestlings; others will glide above it with an eye out for a mate or to snag a quick lunch on a summer’s day. The grasshoppers and katydids will fiddle out daytime tunes with their legs and wings. Perhaps crickets will take up the chorus in the evening near the restored wetlands. And we humans? We’ll enjoy the view and know that along with the Parks staff, the stewardship crew, the volunteers and a caring public which supports our parks, we helped restore a crucial habitat for creatures who desperately need it. What a reward for all of us and what a gift to the future!