Meeting Minutes & Schedules
Schedule of Winter 24/25 On-farm Nature Talks & Discussions
2024 Nov. 20 (meeting minutes)
2024 April 12 (meeting minutes)
Meeting/Presentation Videos
Claudia and Conrad describe some of the preliminary results from their work on nine farms during the Summer of 2025. The talk explores some of the more common and rarer plants found on and around these farms, and their role in supporting flower visitors.
A .pdf of the slides appearing in the above talk.
Farming, Ecology and Landscape Recovery in the Brecklands of Eastern England: 1 Mar. 2025
As guests of the Farmer-Ecologist Research Circle, Richard Evans and Chris Sharpe described their experiences melding nature conservation and farming in the Brecklands of Eastern England. Richard is a sheep farmer who leads the Brecklands Farmers Wildlife Network, while Chris is an independent ornithologist and conservationist working with farmland birds in the same region.
Claudia Knab-Vispo describes her work at Hawthorne Valley Farm, the Hudson Valley Farm Hub, and other farms surveying wild plants in on-farm habitats. She describes a framework for thinking about on-farm wild-plant management and wraps up with a Q&A session that includes discussions about minimum patch size and about Mugwort.
Will Yandik describes his work on avian cropfield use in winter, specifically exploring the potential of over-wintered Sorghum-Sudangrass as a shelter and food source for winter sparrows. Anne Bloomfield then gives a quick overview of the urgency of bird conservation and introduces the long-term monitoring program she has led collecting detailed habitat-use information at the Hudson Valley Farm Hub since 2016. They then lead a Q&A session addressing various on-farm bird management questions, including hay mowing and bird boxes.
Conrad Vispo describes some of the on-farm insect observations made over the years and poses a series of related research questions. IF YOU WATCH THIS, PLEASE GIVE FEEDBACK (connect@research-circle.org) – which on-farm insect questions related or not to the ones presented would interest you?
A video of Jason Tesauro presenting on the turtles one finds on and around farms, especially his study of the Wood Turtles at a trio of regional farms. This is a revised version of what he presented live to the Research Circle.
Summer Results – Birds, Plants and Insects on Collaborating Farms: 20 Nov. 2024
This includes brief slide presentations by Claudia, Will and Conrad describing some to the ‘greatest hits’ from their Summer plant, bird and insect surveys.
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Farmer-Ecologist Research Circle 