The Conservation Commission is taking stock of our town’s unique natural heritage by conducting a biodiversity inventory and assessment. Such accounting is an important step in developing strategies to ensure our treasured natural landscape will be here to benefit our future generations.
Naturalist Patti Smith surveying land along the Green River for its natural resources. She is holding an injured squirrel that was brought to her for rehabilitation. (August 2019)
To do this we are working with naturalist Patti Smith from the Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center (BEEC) to map large areas of unfragmented forest, habitat connectivity, and areas with a diversity of landforms.
Patti began her work in 2018 by studying existing state maps of Guilford’s geology, physical features, land cover, forest patterns, and surface waters. She then identified parcels in Guilford that are likely to support these features. The Conservation Commission contacted landowners, and where permission was given, Patti has been visiting these parcels to look for important habitat features.
She focuses on locating smaller-scale significant and rare natural communities that are easy to miss just looking at maps. The inventory is also identifying habitat features that are critical to wildlife such as remote oak and beech stands, vernal pools, undeveloped stream corridors, and grass and shrubland habitats.
The Green River watershed was the first area of focus in this project. The steep wooded hills along the river host pockets of the Rich Northern Hardwood Forest, a natural community that supports a number of unusual plant species and spring ephemeral wildflowers. Fieldwork is continuing in the central portion of Guilford.
In November 2019, landowner Anne Montgomery sent this note to the Guilford Conservation Commission: “I wanted to let you know that Patti Smith and I had a wonderful walk on my parcel (and the adjacent 2 parcels of my neighbors) a few weeks ago. We spent almost 4 hours bushwhacking from the vernal pool to the oak-hickory dry forest at the top of East Mountain. She took lots of pictures. And I learned a lot!”
Do you have a parcel that has features of interest? If so, please contact the Conservation Commission at lhecker@landmark.edu.
Please also contact us if you know the location of vernal pools or bear-clawed beech trees, or if you see any of the reptiles shown on this flyer.
A fern glade that indicates the rich, sweet soils in a woodland near Green River Village 
Wild ginger and columbine in the woods west of the Green River growing on ledges near the Roaring Brook. 
A “deluxe” porcupine den on a hill east of the Green River
You can also look at these Vermont Fish & Wildlife maps of Guilford’s natural resources:
- Conservation Basemap
- Land Cover
- Forest Pattern
- Physical Features
- Water
- Community & Species Scale Features
- Conservation Priorities
Vermont Fish & Wildlife has also provided us with a guide for inventory mapping for town planning. which can be found here.
The Oak-Hop Hornbeam forest at the summit of Governors Mountain 
A paper birch marked by a bear in Weatherhead Hollow 
Surveying the oak trees on East Mountain with Anne Montgomery.