Project Quail: Egg Hunt and Fence Building
Avalon Park And Preserve Barn, Stony Brook, NY
Saturday, March 26th

On this brisk early-spring afternoon, five eagle-eyed STATE-ees
searched for praying mantis egg cases in the wild flower fields at
Avalon before the annual field mowing. At first, the task seemed
impossible, as the light brown, papery cases blend in so well with
their landscape of fall leaves and dried reeds, but our volunteers
took the mission, finding 77 egg cases in just over two hours! Each
case has the potential to hatch between 100 and 400 individual mantis, so they saved between 7,700 and 30,800 lives!
Great job, guys!

Arcadia: Planning + Seedling Box Construction
Avalon Park And Preserve Barn, Stony Brook, NY
Sunday, March 20th

We broke-up into groups and discussed the types of plants each volunteer deemed necessary and desirable for a balanced garden. After coming to a conclusion as a group and creating a list of seeds needed for the project, we picked up some hammers and nails and constructed the boxes that, in the next program of this series, we'll be filling with fertile soil and seeds to start up Arcadia's plants.