Project GROW wraps up year two
Sonoma Valley High School students recently wrapped up their second year of biological monitoring at Audubon Canyon Ranch’s Bouverie Preserve. The students have been actively taking part in the oak woodland restoration project at the eight-acre Glen Ellen site as part of Project GROW, short for Gathering to Restore Oak Woodlands.
Project GROW is a unique partnership between ACR, the Southern Sonoma County Resource Conservation District and the Center for Land-Based Learning’s SLEWS Program to restore the woodlands.
The students have been trained to conduct field assessments of the restoration site and monitor 15 nest boxes – built and installed this year – for activity. During the course of the year, the students reported their data on-line to the NestWatch project, a continent wide citizen-science project and nest-monitoring database of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The bird boxes were installed to provide breeding habitat for cavity nesting songbirds such as Western bluebirds, Oak titmice and Violet-green swallows.
Other information gathered by the students will be used to track long-term project success and prioritize future restoration needs, including irrigation repairs, replacement plantings and weed control.
Since the project began in December 2009, SVHS students enrolled in the Center for Land-Based Learning’s Student & Landowner Education & Watershed Stewardship program have participated in five oak woodland restoration field days at Bouverie Preserve, assisted in planting more than 400 hand-gathered acorns, established GPS mapping of the restoration areas, and created and installed irrigation systems and built and installed 15 nest boxes for two restoration sites at Bouverie Preserve.
Project GROW was made possible through funding by the California Department of Transportation to mitigate the loss of 117 oak trees during construction of widening and safety work on Highway 12 in Glen Ellen. Mitigation for the loss of oak trees is required by state law.
