We were really excited to get Richmond native Trevor Frost up in the treehouse recently for our newest podcast episode. Frost graduated from VCU at the age of 20, and last year had his multi-year photo project on gelada monkeys in the highlands of Ethiopia featured in National Geographic magazine.

At 32 he’s reached a kind of pinnacle in the world of photography, but as you’ll find out in the interview, Frost isn’t one to rest on his laurels. For one thing, rest doesn’t pay the bills. And Frost is far too passionate about documenting the natural world — and the challenges it faces all around the globe — to not be thinking about the next project(s). We asked him about the life of a globe-trotting photographer, the impact of social media on his business (he has over 165K Instagram followers), what Richmond gets right when it comes to the outdoors, and many other things. Check it out here!

Work continues on Trail 11 this Saturday (Jan. 27) at Pocahontas State Park and trail building/mountain bike club RVA MORE could really use some help. Trail 11 is going to be a downhill trail that will run all the way to Swift Creek Lake and tie in to the newly named Sunsetter Trail. Progress is moving along well and getting closer and closer to completion. Come make your mark on the newest trail at Pocahontas.

They will be meeting at the parking lot off of Courthouse Road (7298 Courthouse Rd, Chesterfield, VA) at 8 a.m., and work will run to around 1 pm. Even if you’re tight on time and can only spare an hour any help is appreciated.

RichmondOutside.com’s treehouse HQ/podcast studio.

Good news: Part 2 of our interview with Ralph White is live! It’s the second release from our new RichmondOutside podcast — Views from the Treehouse — where we interview local outdoors newsmakers in our treehouse headquarters 20 feet up in a beautiful tulip poplar.

You can find it on Soundcloud and iTunes. Click here or search “richmondoutside.” When you subscribe you’ll be alerted every week when our next interview comes out.

Editor’s Note: It was my great pleasure to be the Outdoors columnist for the Times-Dispatch for six years, from 2008-2013. I wrote two columns a week for most of that time, mostly sticking to Central Virginia, writing about the people and places that make the outdoor scene here special. I kept all my clippings from those years, and as I was going through them the other day, it occurred to me that, while some were event-based or otherwise time sensitive, many of them are still relevant today. The below is one of those, amended and updated (from Christmas Day, 2009). Look for more in the future as part of an occasional series.

A walk in the snowy woods the other day got me thinking about “CSI.”

You know the show; reruns are all over cable TV. Every so often an episode will include a scene where investigators try to interpret footprints. They’ll spray some liquid on the ground, turn on a special light, and, with the right glasses on, footprints will appear. Sometimes the show will enhance the effect by raising the prints into the air, inviting the viewer to follow the print path to its conclusion.

Snow makes tracking deer in the urban woods much easier.

That’s what I kept seeing out in the woods: deer prints rising up out of their impressions in the snow, becoming a whitetail buck or doe (in my imagination, it’s usually a big 12-point buck I see). I imagined the animal following the path, jumping over a downed tree, stopping to drink some snowmelt.

It started in a nearby city park Monday morning, my dogs and hiking a hillside above a creek. We were following a trail that no one had touched since the snow started falling Friday night. The only tracks were mine behind me and mine up ahead. The I saw some others. They crossed the trail and continued down to the water’s edge. I bent down to look. They were deer tracks.

I’d seen deer in this area in the past and long speculated about their patterns in the park — where they bedded, what routes they choose, what they fed on, etc. Sometimes I’d come across a print in the dirt, but this time I recognized immediately how useful the snow would be to someone interested in the comings and goings of animal life.

For hunters, the snow offers an invaluable opportunity — and a rare one considering how often it snows here — to gain insight into deer movement. Heavy rains can be helpful, allowing mud to record tracks, but in forested areas, nothing is better than snow. For non-hunters, too, snow presents an opportunity to pursue animals usually only glimpsed by the side of the road.

Why follow tracks? The same reason you watch “CSI”: To put clues together in the hopes of figuring out who (or what) went where and did what. To solve a mystery.

Examining the prints up close, I realized there was more this print could tell me than the identity of the animal that created it. It was below freezing outside, and the print edge was hard. Inside, where the hoof had broken through, the snow was fluffy and light. It had gotten above freezing the day before, so I knew this track was fresh. A track from the day before would have thawed some, then re-frozen overnight, creating a hard crust over the entire print.

We followed the trail across the creek but eventually lost it on a heavily trafficked path, where dozens of humans and dogs had come and gone. This deer was lost but my appetite was whetted.

We headed home and packed the car for another city park, this one also about 100 acres and heavily forested. I was sure there’d be deer sign there. I was barely out of the car before finding out how right I was.

Deer prints were all over the area leading to the narrow park entrance. My dogs’ noses were hot on the scent. Less than 50 yards in, in a thick stand of cedars, we found droppings and urine lining the path of prints, which soon veered off into deeper snow.

We skirted a fence along the park boundary: more droppings, more urine. The trail turned sharply again and paralleled a small rivulet in the snow-covered forest floor. Periodically it would cross the trickle, now growing into a discernible creek.

The understory in this part of the park was mostly holly trees. Where the creek began to cut a deeper channel, we found the trail leading to a group of hollies with low, outstretched branches. Within their spread was a clear bedding area. Bare ground showed through the snow. Five spots had been scraped out. It looked fresh. Again the dogs’ noses went haywire.

At times the tracks came together and then separated. We had to choose which to follow. I’d been here before and knew where the creek led, so we followed the set by the water. I picked my steps slowly and as quietly as possible. As the temperature climbed above freezing, it became harder to age the tracks, but it seemed like we were on fresh ones.

Farther downstream, where the creek cut a bone fide ravine, my hunch was confirmed. Up above us, about 100 yards in the distance, two does stood on the crest of a hill. Their noses were turned into the wind, which carried our scent toward them. My dogs didn’t see them, but I knew it was a matter of time before the deer smelled us.

I crouched low, holding the dogs, and watched as the deer turned their gaze our way. I don’t think they saw, but they didn’t need to. Their noses told them plenty. They wheeled and bounded away from us, down the hill’s far side.

We clambered up to where they had been, but the forest had swallowed them. All that was left was the path of their escape — footprints in the snow — signposts to follow for anyone with the time and inclination.

We’re really excited today to announce a new venture: a weekly podcast that we’re calling Views from the Treehouse. Why, you might ask, is it called that? Because we record every episode in our secret treehouse headquarters (and by secret I mean you can see it from the street, if you know where to stand).

RichmondOutside.com’s treehouse HQ/podcast studio.

Every week Riverside Outfitters owner Matt Perry and I will make the climb 20 feet up a tulip poplar to sit down with Central Virginia’s outdoors newsmakers. We’ll ask them relevant questions and irrelevant ones. We want the result to be topical and informative but also fun and entertaining.

Before Christmas we sat down with the one and only Ralph White, legendary James River Park manager of 32 years who retired in 2012. During White’s tenure, the James River went from dumping ground to the crown jewel of Richmond, now a first-class outdoor recreation destination. White is a master storyteller. In Part 1 of this two-part series, White covers everything from how he’s like Judas Iscariot to meeting hobos in cabooses. This is a conversation you don’t want miss.

And come on back every Thursday for the next installment. We’ve got a really great lineup of guests in the works!

Click here to listen to Episode 1.

Last year your financial support and volunteers’ time made a big difference in the JRPS. We are proud of what has been accomplished and grateful to the many dedicated, hard-working people who together make it possible too keep our Park an area of unspoiled natural beauty — a little bit of

Hikers on the Buttermilk Trail.

wilderness in the heart of the city.

• Sponsored Richmond Outside’s RVA Osprey Cam and partnered with RichmondOutside.com to present a naming contest for the birds, now known as Maggie and Walker
• Developed educational materials for use in conjunction with the osprey cam
• Worked to improve the user experience for visitors to the jamesriverpark.org website (ongoing)
• Solicited proposals for development of, and initiated fundraising efforts for, the James River Park Master Plan (Friends of the James River Park donated the first $50,000)
• Conducted the annual Conservation Easement inspections
• Welcomed new Director of Parks and Recreation, Chris Frelke
• Attended City Council meetings to promote the needs of the park
• Contracted with VCU for an Economic Impact Study of the park and promoted the completed study
• Finalized the Preservation and Protection Fund policy
• Advocated for better GRTC access to all sections of the park
• Funded a second port-a-john at Reedy Creek
• Supported park staff travel to Richmond Upon Thames
• Paid RVA Goats to provide animals for invasive vegetation removal at the Manchester Climbing Wall
• Received license plate revenue in excess of $33,000
• Organized monthly park clean-ups to engage our members and improve the park
• Hosted the annual Ralph White River Heroes Awards event (recipients: Joey Parent for Education, Warren Foster (memorial) for Promotion, Laura Greenleaf for Preservation, and Margaret Maslak for Outstanding Volunteer, the members’ picnic and the annual Winter Solstice Celebration

Evergreen Cemetery in Richmond’s East End. Credit: Wikipedia

A week from today many Richmonders will be off from work due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In recent years, there’s been a growing effort to make the day more meaningful by turning it into a day of service, i.e. honoring King’s legacy by undertaking a volunteer project in one’s community.

Last year on MLK Day, a friend and I took our kids into the James River Park to clear a trail. It was a worthy exercise, a great excuse to get the kids outside and working with a purpose, but I wouldn’t say it connected us to King in any meaningful way.

That’s why I was excited to hear about the Enrichmond Foundation’s volunteer opportunity at Evergreen Cemetery next Monday. If you’ve never heard of Evergreen, you probably aren’t alone among Central Virginians. Located in Richmond’s East End and created in 1891, Evergreen is a historic African-American cemetery. It is the resting place for many of the city’s African-American leaders of the 19th and 20th centuries, including Maggie L. Walker, John Mitchell, Jr., and Rev. J. Andrew Bowler. There are an estimated 5,000 plots in Evergreen, most of which have become overgrown after over 40 years of neglect. The Enrichmond Foundation recently purchased the neglected acreage then placed it in a conservation easement and is trying to build on years of grassroots efforts to restore the cemetery to its former glory.

I’ll be out there with my wife and kids on Monday, pulling invasives and clearing gravesites. For those with limited mobility, Enrichmond also needs help recording grave markers for their records. Click here to learn more and to sign up.

If you want to learn about all the volunteer opportunities across the area on MLK Day, HandsOn Greater Richmond’s volunteer page is the place to go. There are dozens of options to choose from.

Editor’s Note: It was my great pleasure to be the Outdoors columnist for the Times-Dispatch for six years, from 2008-2013. I wrote two columns a week for most of that time, mostly sticking to Central Virginia, writing about the people and places that make the outdoor scene here special. I kept all my clippings from those years, and as I was going through them the other day, it occurred to me that, while some were event-based or otherwise time sensitive, many of them are still relevant today. The below is one of those, amended and updated (from Jan. 2013). Look for more in the future as part of an occasional series.

DUCKS ARRIVE FOR WINTER

If you think it’s been cold here the past few days, you’re probably not a northern pintail. Or a canvasback. Or a hooded merganser. No, if you’re one of those duck species, and you wake up to a sunny, 29-degree Richmond morning, you’re probably high-fiveing your friends: “At least it’s not 20 below!” you say.

The hooded merganser can be found on the James anywhere from Dutch Gap to Bosher’s Dam. Credit: Wikipedia

Ducks and geese come from all over North America — Alaska, Canada, New England, the northern central U.S. — to winter in the Chesapeake Bay region. Heck, tundra swans fly all the way in from the Arctic. But some find the waterways of Central Virginia so inviting, so food and habitat rich, that they never make it to the Bay.

“There’s no doubt that this time of year there’s the most diversity of ducks here,” said Gary Costanzo, a waterfowl biologist with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

Most people can identify a Canada goose and a mallard. They’re practically suburbia’s mascots. But this is the best time of year to get familiar with a host of dabbling and diving ducks that, come spring, will head back north to their breeding grounds.

Aaron Bose, local birder and graphic designer, is always on the lookout for waterfowl fresh in from colder climates. “Personally, I really enjoy birding in the city,” he said. “It’s an urban area, but there’s a lot of birds to be found. It’s almost a challenge because you’re trying to find a variety in a place where you wouldn’t expect them.”

Check out the rapids below the Nickel Bridge for bufflehead action.

The James River is always a good place to start because it’s full of vegetation, invertebrates and fish that dabblers and divers need. That’s more true now, Bose said, because when it’s cold enough for smaller bodies of water to freeze — like local ponds, marshes and wetlands — “birds hit the river; they’ll want to find the open water.”

In the city, the area from Pony Pasture to the Wetlands is a good place to start. “The water is pretty calm. You can see good numbers of buffleheads,” Bose said. You can see ring-neck ducks, lesser scaup. We’ve even had a few canvasbacks recently.”

Mergansers are known as river ducks, and, Costanzo said, they’ll go to any kind of water that’s got a lot of fish in it.”

Of the three varieties — common, hooded and red-breasted — he explained, the red-breasted tend to frequent salty of brackish waters, so they’re more often found in the Bay. But hooded and common mergansers can be found anywhere from Dutch Gap in Chesterfield County on the tidal James to Bosher’s Dam just west of the Richmond/Henrico line.

“Usually, there’s one or two common mergansers in the city,” Bose said. “Usually I see them up by Pony Pasture or down off the Floodwall.”

Both Costanzo and Bose mentioned Dutch Gap as a great place for waterfowl watching. “That overlook when you go into the Henricus (Historical Park) area,” Bose said, “that’s really great for pintail, American wigeon, which you don’t necessarily see in the city too often. You get a lot of shoveler.”

Is there a more beautiful bird than the wood duck?

If all this has you saying, “That’s great, but how will I tell a hooded merganser from a ring-necked duck, or an American black duck from a wood duck?” there’s good news. There are dozens of bird and waterfowl ID books and websites available (AllAboutBirds.org is one of my favorites). And Ducks Unlimited offers a free app, which features duck ID info, including pictures, for all the major North American species.

Ok, you’ve got your ID resources, a pair of binoculars, and a few local bodies of water in mind to survey waterfowl. Getting to know ducks in the area this time of year still can be daunting.

“Take them one at a time because it is easy to get overwhelmed with a lot of birds,” Bose suggested. “Just focus on one or two and figure out what they are and forget about the rest. Next time you’re out, you already know those two and you can focus on some others.”

The effort will be worth it, because once you’ve got a few down, every winter you’ll feel like you’re greeting friends returned from the wintry north. But get out there soon. By March, the north won’t be quite as wintry, and the traveling waterfowl show will be gone.

Following up on last week’s post about a volunteer opportunity at Pocahontas State Park that was postponed due to snow. From the RVA MORE email blast:

Plans for putting in some work on Trail 11 at Pocahontas State Park last weekend were foiled by mother nature so we’ll take another shot this Saturday.  This one is going to be a roller coaster on 2 wheels, come have a hand in making it happen as we make a push to get it open for riding!  We will be meeting at the parking off of courthouse road (7298 Courthouse Rd, Chesterfield, VA) at 9 am on Saturday.  

Any cancellations will be announced by Friday night via email and the rvaMORE Facebook page.

Editor’s Note: The Enrichmond Foundation is Richmond’s parks foundation, serving the people, parks, and public spaces of the City of Richmond since 1990. This article was written by Enrichmond staff.

The Enrichmond Foundation is branching out in a big way. TreeLab is our one-year-old urban nursery, growing trees and plants to beautify and improve the River City. Although we focus on growing native species for optimal environmental impact, TreeLab manager Aaron McFarland maintains that, with invasive exceptions, “any plant is better than no plant.”

Enrichmond’s TreeLab before renovations.

Enrichmond is known primarily for its protection and promotion of RVA’s outdoor resources. Our activities include supporting 100+ outdoor-focused and recreation groups (our “Partners” and “Friends”), co-holding the James River Park system’s conservation easement and, most recently, restoring historic Evergreen Cemetery. In late 2016, our longtime collaboration with Richmond’s Parks Department yielded an opportunity for Enrichmond to take over management of a dilapidated greenhouse in Richmond’s Northside. This greenhouse has become the home-base for “TreeLab” — a name inspired by trees as self-contained natural laboratories and of our desire to explore the vast potential of trees, shrubs, and other beneficial plants.

The 2,500-sq. ft. greenhouse with approximately 0.3 acres of production space is tucked up behind John Marshall High School, east of Bryan Park and south of Pine Camp. The city built the greenhouse in the 1970’s and grew beautification plants there until the mid-1980’s, when it abandoned the greenhouse as a growing facility. By 2016, the greenhouse was a long-forgotten storage container with trees growing through its cracked plastic. Thanks to support from the Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation, we initiated renovations in late 2016 with a vision of creating a local source of high-quality, environmentally beneficial plants and to work with volunteer groups, businesses, nonprofits, and the city to make those plants available. In January 2017, Aaron McFarland moved from Vermont to Richmond to bring TreeLab to life.

The TreeLab this past July.

At the heart of TreeLab is a desire to see more and better trees go into Richmond’s urban soil. Trees’ abilities to mitigate water, soil and airborne pollution, reduce stormwater runoff, absorb excess carbon, and lower surface and air temperatures are drawing the attention of urban enclaves throughout the U.S., including Richmond. This year, RVA H20 released the RVA Clean Water Plan, prepared for the Department of Public Utilities, and trees play a significant role in green infrastructure meant to get results (and meet EPA requirements). The many physical and psychological benefits of trees – including reduced stress and even lower levels of domestic violence in tree-laden areas – have increasingly found their way into the news. We focus on growing native plants because they are adapted to regional conditions, evolved to handle local insects and diseases, and are the most beneficial to their environment.

TreeLab seeks to increase Richmond’s tree canopy and help the city realize the many benefits of healthy, sustainable trees. We operate through a retail model that feeds our nonprofit mission. Our nursery offers high-quality, native and specialty trees, as well as shrubs and perennials. As a small nursery, we are nimble — able to provide custom orders that are scaled to different kinds of projects. Whether its 30 plants for a side yard rain garden or 300 pine seedlings along a stream bed, TreeLab’s plants serve the wide variety of environments found throughout the city. Additionally, TreeLab is in the beginning stages of propagating Richmond trees and plants from cuttings – creating plants that are pure products of their native environment.

More TreeLab from this past summer.

Our project partners so far include project: HOMES, Friends of Allen Ave. Commons, Maggie Walker Community Land Trust, and Richmond Tree Stewards. We seek to source to organizations interested in environmental best practices and projects that build green infrastructure. Growing and selling plants from our nursery helps to fulfill part of our mission to increase the amount, biodiversity, and quality of plants throughout the city. As we enter the new year, proceeds from our retail operation will cycle into a program to increase Richmond’s tree canopy through street tree plantings, especially in areas of the city that lack tree coverage.

In 2018, we will continue to seek local partnerships and physically expand to increase our growing capacity. Resources such as the RVA Clean Water Plan, the Science Museum’s recent heat map study, and Richmond’s street tree mapping program are helping us identify areas with the most need for trees – primarily in the historically industrial and underemployed areas of Richmond’s East End, Manchester, and other Southside neighborhoods. Expansion, however, does not mean leaving behind “better” for “bigger.” In order for trees to have the highest impact, they must be sustainable. As we look toward subsidizing street trees, we will work with local landscaping companies to provide continued maintenance and monitoring.

Much as it takes time for a tree to establish itself in its environment, TreeLab is sinking its roots into how its trees and plants can make a lasting impact on Richmond’s urban landscape. By producing high-quality plants, seeking environmentally-minded partners, planning for continued maintenance, and focusing on how to get more trees into the ground where they are needed most, TreeLab will keep working to contribute to a healthier, greener Richmond.

Interested in learning more about TreeLab? Email Aaron at treelab@enrichmond.org or call us (804) 234-3905 ext. 107. We’re happy to show you around TreeLab – just let us know if you’d like to come by! To keep in touch virtually, visit us at www.enrichmond.org/treelab and follow us on Instagram at enrichmond_treelab.