Conservancy Blog

Conservancy Blog

The Hazards of Easement Monitoring

Each year, the four members of our easement management staff visit all 34,000 acres of land subject to the Conservancy’s conservation easements.  

We get to visit some of the prettiest landscapes in the region and see some incredibly special places.  In exchange for...

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Featured Native Shrub: Honeysuckle

When most people think of honeysuckle, they think of the Japanese honeysuckle vine that grows along fences and trees-- the one with the sweet nectar we all tasted as kids. 

Japanese honeysuckle and the other three bush honeysuckles (Morrow, Tatarian, and...

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Cool Caterpillar at the Laurels

While cutting invasive oriental bittersweet vines in the Laurels Preserve last week, we discovered a caterpillar that we had never seen before. It sat motionless on a nearby grapevine and could have been easily overlooked because of its cryptic coloration.
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Butterfly Behavior

While visiting one of the Conservancy's easements last week, I came across several Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterflies that were feeding on manure at the edge of a horse paddock.
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Flying Purple...Beetle Eater??

Have you noticed any purple prism-shaped boxes hanging from trees?  Wondering what is the purpose of these boxes? 

They are traps set by the PA Department of Agriculture to catch a ruthless invader, the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB).  Native to eastern Russia, northern China, Japan...

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