Please join us for one of our events! Updated information and any last minute changes to these events can be found at this website, or by calling the Parks Office at 248-651-7810. Details for each event are found below the table.
Oakland Township Parks also offers many excellent nature programs. You could learn about bats, hummingbirds, invasive species, and more! See the full schedule and register for programs at oaklandtownship.recdesk.com
2026 Stewardship Education Events
| Event | Location | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stewardship Winter Potluck Celebration | Paint Creek Cider Mill, 4480 Orion Rd | January 15, 2026 | 6-8 pm |
| Winter Talk: Seeds for Habitat – Restoring Nature and Growing Community | Paint Creek Cider Mill, 4480 Orion Rd | February 5, 2026 | 6:30 pm |
| Training – Prescribed Fire Crew | Paint Creek Cider Mill, 4480 Orion Rd | February 21, 2026 | 9 am to 2:30 pm |
| Training – Bird Nest Box Monitoring | Paint Creek Cider Mill, 4480 Orion Rd | March 24, 2026 | 6:30 – 7:30 pm |
| Training – Vernal Pool Monitoring | Bear Creek Nature Park, 740 West Snell Rd | April 3, 2026 | 10 am to 1 pm |
Natural Areas Stewardship Winter Potluck Celebration
- January 14, 2026 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm
- Paint Creek Cider Mill, 4480 Orion Rd, Rochester, MI 48306
Join us for a celebration of last year’s achievements as we warm ourselves with some hearty conversation and great food. Learn about upcoming events and projects while connecting with others involved in our natural areas stewardship programs. RSVP appreciated to bvanderweide@oaklandtwpmi.gov or 248-651-7810 ext. 401 by Friday, January 10, 2026.
Winter Talk – Annually in January and February
Seeds for Habitat: Restoring Nature and Growing Community
- Ben VanderWeide, Grant Vander Laan, George Hartsig, Lisa Muenzenberger, Aaron Carroll. Natural Areas Stewardship, Oakland Township Parks & Recreation
- Tuesday, February 5, 6:30 pm, Paint Creek Cider Mill, 4480 Orion Rd, Rochester, MI 48306
How would you use leaf vacuums, softener salt bags, and screens for habitat restoration? Over the last several years we have ramped up our use of locally-collected native plant seed for habitat restoration, led by volunteer George Hartsig. We want to share our recent innovations to efficiently collect, clean, and spread seed. Native plant seed helps us restore diversity to natural areas in our parks that have been degraded by invasive species, grazing, farming, and changes to our landscape over the decades. You’ll learn more about the work in our parks, and pick up many practical tips for collecting and cleaning native seed for your home or natural areas projects. We’ll bring examples of our tools for you to check out!
Ben VanderWeide and Grant Vander Laan are natural areas stewardship staff and lead ecological restoration in the park. George Hartsig, Lisa Muenzenberger, and Aaron Carroll have taken the lead in growing our native seed program, collecting, cleaning, and distributing native seed in habitat restoration work throughout our parks. They’ve more than doubled the amount of seed we collect each year!
George gathering seed 
Lisa entering data at our 2024 seed cleaning workday 
2024 seed cleaning workday 
Milkweed seeds, ready to fly 
Volunteer George Hartsig spreading seed this spring after the first burn at Bear Creek 
Stewardship specialist Grant Vanderlaan spreading seed after the last burn at Bear Creek Nature Park. 
Gathered Big Bluestem seed (Andropogon gerardii) not yet processed
Training – Prescribed Fire Crew
February 21, 2026, 9 am to 2:30 pm at the Paint Creek Cider Mill
If you are interested in volunteering with our prescribed fire crew, join us for this training workshop. We will cover reasons for using prescribed fire, preparations for conducting a fire, necessary tools, roles of each burn crew member, and ignition patterns. New crew members are required to attend; past volunteers are encouraged to attend as a refresher. Snacks provided, but please bring your own lunch Registration required on RecDesk required to attend. Contact Ben VanderWeide at bvanderweide@oaklandtownship.org or 248-651-7810 ext. 401 with any questions.
Training – Bird Nest Box Monitoring
March 24, 2026 at 6:30 pm in the Paint Creek Cider Mill
Become a citizen scientist and make a difference! Learn how to safely and properly monitor bird nests, both in nest boxes and other nest types. By monitoring a nearby nest, you can help scientists study the biology of North America’s birds and how it might be changing over time. Every spring and summer, volunteers from across the country visit nests and report their findings to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s NestWatch program. For more about NestWatch, please visit www.nestwatch.org. Some nest box monitoring opportunities may be available in our parks in 2026, but you can also monitor nests in your own backyard. Register on RecDesk.
Training – Vernal Pool Monitoring Field Training
April 3, 2026 from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm at Bear Creek Nature Park
If you wanted to find fairy shrimp, fingernail clams, and salamander eggs, where would you look? In Michigan’s special vernal pools! Michigan Vernal Pool Patrol will be offering an online 3-part Vernal Pool training series on Wednesday evenings in March each year for folks interested in exploring & monitoring vernal pools. Registration will go live at https://vernal-pool-patrol-mnfi.hub.arcgis.com/ in late winter. Vernal Pool Patrol volunteers MUST attend these three online sessions before joining in our local in-person field training event in early April. Register for the field training at https://oaklandtownship.recdesk.com/.
