Upcoming Events, Walks and Programs

Note that most of our Monthly Meetings are recorded. Links to recordings hosted by SudburyTV can be found on the Archive page.

Starts Thursday, March 18, 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Continues every Thursday for six weeks

Appreciating Wilderness: Watercolor Painting at the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge

With Cecelia Sharma, Museum School Instructor. Offered for a second year by popular demand. Enjoy painting wilderness landscapes and still life from a unique setting at Weir Hill, Great Meadows NWR. Instruction will include basic techniques of watercolor painting with an emphasis on developing textures, washes, shapes and creating the illusion of light. Enjoy individual hands-on instruction and explore your own personal painting style. Beginners are welcome!

Fee: $75, does not include materials. Class limit: 12. Held at Great Meadows NWR, 73 Weir Hill Road, Sudbury. Register by February 18. Please contact sheilnex@gmail.com for space availability and once you have received confirmation, checks to made out to FARNWR, mailed to Friends of Assabet River NWR, P.O. Box 5729, Marlborough, MA 01752.

Watercolor supply list:

• 12 tubes of paint or paint set
• Pencil, eraser, painting knife
• Assorted watercolor brushes 2 (flat 1 inch and 3quarter inch flat (wash brush) 2 rounds # 6 or 8, and 1 rigger OR watercolor brushes set (sable) an old small brush to apply Frisket (masking fluid)
• Palette (to mix colors)
• 2 small containers for water
• Masking fluid
• Watercolor paper (CP) cold press 140lb or even Hot pressed (HP)
• Small spray bottle

Saturday, March 20, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Nature Walk: A Sense of Place, Exploring the Landscape at Great Meadows NWR in Concord

A continuing series of monthly walks exploring the landscape, plants, and seasonal wonders of Great Meadows in Concord. The damp and warming earth, freshening breezes, and first blush of new growth are hallmarks of the March landscape. Rising waters, lingering ice, returning birds, and first flowers all await us on the trail. Dress for mud!

Led by Cherrie Corey, local naturalist and botanist. Cherrie has been communing with the flora and fauna of Great Meadows for much of her life. As the N.E. Wild Flower Society’s first education director, a board member for the Mass. Environmental Education Society, and former Executive Director of the Harvard Museums of Cultural and Natural History, she has long dedicated herself to inspiring a deeper connection to the natural world.

The walk will begin at the Great Meadows NWR parking lot. Take Rte. 62 in Concord, to Monsen Road, then turn left into the GMNWR driveway where Monsen Rd. curves to the right. No pre-registration required. A $5/person voluntary donation will be gratefully accepted. For questions, email cherrie.corey@verizon.net or call 978-760-1933. For more information about these walks, see sense-of-place-concord.blogspot

This year’s walks are cosponsored by Friends of the Assabet River NWR and Musketaquid, the arts and environment program of the Emerson Umbrella Center for the Arts in Concord.

Wednesday, March 31, 7:00 PM

Monthly Meeting with talk Wonders of Beavers

Assabet Keeping Track (AKT) will make a brief presentation about their research and initial survey of beaver activity on and around the Refuge.

The presentation will be followed by a National Geographic documentary titled Rocky Mountain Beaver Pond. “Tireless worker, exceptional parent, and highly skilled builder, the beaver has earned its reputation as nature's great architect and engineer. For the beaver, dam building is an instinctive and irresistible reaction to the sound of rushing water. Surrounded by the majestic wilderness of the Rockies, a family of these industrious creatures creates and maintains a serene pond that supports an entire community of plants and animals”.

Assabet Keeping Track is a wildlife monitoring team of 17 members, coordinated by Karen Riggert. Their work is done with permission of the Fish and Wildlife Service and they are affiliated with the Friends of the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge. Their full photo gallery can be found at www.pbase.com/akt.

The Friends' monthly meetings are held on the last Wednesday of each month at 7:00pm at the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters, 73 Weir Hill Road in Sudbury (Google Map). Each meeting starts with a brief discussion of the Refuge status, followed by our featured presentation.

Saturday, April 3, 8:00 AM

Birding Walk at Great Meadows NWR with Jonathan Center

Join Jonathan Center for an easy walk in search of early spring migrants such as Wood Duck, Pied-Billed Grebe, Eastern Phoebe, Tree Swallow, and Rusty Blackbird. Sponsored by the Brookline Bird Club.

Meet at the Great Meadows NWR parking lot off Monson Road. (Take Rte. 62 in Concord, to Monsen Road, then turn left into the GM NWR driveway where Monsen Rd. curves to the right.)

Wednesday, April 21, 7:30 AM

Birding Walk at Great Meadows NWR with Clayton Swanson

Join Clayton Swanson for a birding walk on easy trails looking for residents and early migrants. Sponsored by the Brookline Bird Club.

Meet at the Great Meadows NWR parking lot off Monson Road. (Take Rte. 62 in Concord, to Monsen Road, then turn left into the GM NWR driveway where Monsen Rd. curves to the right.) The walk will move on from there to Nine-Acre Corner with a possible extension to Drumlin Farm.

Kids Program
Wednesday, April 21, 10:00 AM - 12:00 Noon

Dinosaurs in Massachusetts

What kinds of dinosaurs did we have here in Massachusetts and how do we know about them? Come see some real dinosaur footprint fossils from the Connecticut River Valley and learn how scientists use tracks to learn about how dinosaurs lived.

Join Sarah Doyle (from the Friends of Great Falls Discovery Center / Silvio O. Conte National Wildlife Refuge) for stories and hands-on activities that are all about dinosaurs in Massachusetts. Please bring a tape measure and your curiosity and enthusiasm!

Limited enrollment of 8 kids. Please contact neeladez@gmail.com for registration and register by March 31st. Fee $10 for members and $ 15 for non-members. Checks to be made out to FARNWR and mailed to FARNWR, P.O Box 5792 Marlborough MA 01752.

Wednesday, April 21, 7:00 PM

Annual Meeting with talk American Dinosaurs: The Discovery of Fossils in the Connecticut River Valley

The talk will describe early events in American paleontology when footprints were found in South Hadley in 1802 thought to be tracks left by the raven that disappeared from the Noah's ark. Later in 1835, tracks on a stone slab in Greenfield were thought to be turkey traces or a chance arrangement of geologic features. Those discoveries became the first dinosaur footprints ever studied by scientists, long before the word "dinosaur" was coined and the animals not even known to have existed! As the 19th century progressed, the Connecticut River Valley became one of the world's premier sites for what scientists eventually realized was evidence of a lost world of awe-inspiring reptiles.

Sarah Doyle is president of the Friends of the Great Falls Discovery Center in Turners Falls and the Sivio O. Conte National Wldlife Refuge that showcases the Connecticut River Valley Watershed. For more information see: www.greatfallsma.org.

Please note our meeting is on the 3rd Wednesday this month to coincide with vacation week. Monthly meetings are held at the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters, 73 Weir Hill Road in Sudbury (Google Map). Each meeting starts with a brief discussion of the Refuge status, followed by our featured presentation.

Wednesday, April 25, 7:00 AM

Birding Walk at Assabet River NWR with David Lange

Join David Lange for a birding and interpretive walk on the trails of the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge. Be prepared to walk! Sponsored by the Friends and the Brookline Bird Club.

Meet at the Hudston Road entrance to the Assabet River NWR (on Rte 27, about 2.7 miles west of Sudbury Center just east of the Stow town line).

Sunday, May 2, 7:00 AM

Birding Walk at Assabet River NWR with David Lange

Join David Lange for a birding and interpretive walk on the trails of the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge. Be prepared to walk! Sponsored by the Friends and the Brookline Bird Club.

Meet at the Hudston Road entrance to the Assabet River NWR (on Rte 27, about 2.7 miles west of Sudbury Center just east of the Stow town line).

Friday, May 14, 7:00 AM

Birding Walk at Great Meadows NWR with Sabrina Hepburn

Join Sabrina Hepburn for a birding walk At Great Meadows NWR. Sponsored by the Brookline Bird Club.

Meet at the Great Meadows NWR parking lot off Monson Road. (Take Rte. 62 in Concord, to Monsen Road, then turn left into the GM NWR driveway where Monsen Rd. curves to the right.)

Wednesday, May 26, 7:00 PM

Monthly Meeting with talk by Amber Carr Combating Alien Invaders: Invasive Plant Removal Efforts in National Wildlife Refuges of Great Meadows, Assabet River and Oxbow

Learn what an "invasive plant" is and find out the negative impact of these plants on the economy, environment and human health. Do you know the two dozen invasive plant species being targeted for control locally? Learn about the strategies and methods for early detection, mapping, removal and rapid response employed in the Wildlife Refuges. Initiatives to involve schools and communities in these efforts and the new inter-agency collaborative agreement for invasives control (CISMA) will be explained. Fresh seasonal specimens and herbarium specimens will be available for inspection to help you identify invasives occurring locally and tips for keeping invasives under control in your garden and neighborhood will be provided.

Amber Carr is the Invasive Plant Technician of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Eastern MA NWR Complex. For the past two years she has designed and coordinated the invasives plant removal efforts for the three refuges of Great Meadows, Assabet River and Oxbow. She organized over 50 invasives removal parties during the 2009 field season between spring and early winter.

For background information see the following material from the New England Wildflower Society: Invaders ... We’re fighting back and Controlling Invasive Plants at Home.

The Friends' monthly meetings are held on the last Wednesday of each month at 7:00pm at the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters, 73 Weir Hill Road in Sudbury (Google Map). Each meeting starts with a brief discussion of the Refuge status, followed by our featured presentation.