S2S continues its veteran outreach at Tilly Foster Farm in New York!

On Aug 28th, S2S partnered with Cornell Cooperative Extension in Putnam County, NY to host a full day drop-in Bioblitz at Tilly Foster Farm. We’ve established a dedicated Biodiversity Catalog Project on iNaturalist in coordination with the NYDEC as part of a wider Restore, Regenerate, and Reforestation Program at the property. This is part of a larger partnership designed to use this amazing forest to rejuvenate the environment while helping veterans and their families to become stewards of our nation’s natural resources!

Volunteers learning more about the Restoration Project! - Photo taken by S2S

Participants and families stopped by throughout the day to learn how to use #Seek and iNaturalist in the field, helping us cover more ground and adding over 330 new observations and identifying 170 species! The weather was really nice for much of the day, though the wind picked up in the evening, shutting down some of the bird and insect action. However, participants were undeterred and continued to add sightings until the final bell!

Veterans and Volunteers hard at work recording observations! - Photo taken by S2S

Over the next 4 years, S2S will continue its partnership with the Cornell Cooperative Extension to generate interest in the property while recording critical data to better understand this ecosystem. Tilly Foster Farm is one of S2S’s focus projects! Stay tuned as we roll out several new projects here, including nest box installations, regular bird and pollinator surveys, and multiple game cameras for citizen science monitoring!

A great find! - Photo Taken by S2S