This year marks the 44th Annual Sugar on Snow Parties hosted by the Green Mountain Audubon Center.
Huntington, Vermont, (March 2014) When the steam rises from the Green Mountain Audubon Center’s Sugarhouse along the Richmond-Huntington Road, you know it’s time to visit their bird-friendly sugarbush to take part in a sweet Vermont tradition – a Sugar on Snow party. The Green Mountain Audubon Center is celebrating its 50th Anniversary making this year’s Sugar on Snow parties extra sweet! The parties are being held on March 22, 23 and 30th from 10 AM to 4 PM.
Celebrate the sugaring season with sweet sugar on snow, sugaring demonstrations, and taste delicious samples of maple syrup! There’s no fee to attend the Sugar on Snow parties at the Green Mountain Audubon Center and the tours and activities are also free of charge. Sweet treats served up by volunteers, like bowls of snow drizzled with boiling hot maple syrup, donuts, pickles, and hot beverages will be available for purchase. The Center’s parties are unique in that there is a strong educational component and all proceeds from the events directly support the non-profit’s year-round conservation education programs. Their Teacher-Naturalists will lead tours of the sugarbush and sugarhouse to explain the process of turning sap into syrup, and will discuss the management practices we have put in place to foster breeding bird populations in their sugarbush.
The Green Mountain Audubon Center is excited that this is their 50th Anniversary which makes for another reason to celebrate. The Center has been making syrup from the 600+-tap sugarbush on the property since 1970. Because theirs is one of the remaining sugarbushes in the area to gather sap with buckets and fire the arch with wood; staff and volunteers must visit each tapped maple tree when sap runs in order to boil. Maple sugaring is an important part of the education programs at the Center. During the sugaring season, the Center has over 2500 visitors, from preschoolers with their parents to busloads of school children from surrounding communities, to the Sugar on Snow partygoers. “Celebrating and experiencing the maple sugaring process is part of Vermont’s culture. Through our sugaring programs at the Center, we hope to share with the community not only the wonders of the maple sugaring process, but also information about how we manage our sugarbush for birds. Many species of birds use our sugarbush during the breeding season and so we are always mindful of that and make our management decisions accordingly,” says Kim Guertin, Director of the Center. “The best way to learn about sugaring is to come out and experience all the season has to offer first-hand. It’s a great time of year to get outdoors!”
Dozens of species of migrating songbirds return to the sugarbushes each spring to breed, bringing their bright colors and sweet songs to our northern hardwood forests. Birds like the Black-throated Blue Warbler or the Wood Thrush are as characteristic of Vermont’s forests as the sugar maple, but many of them are experiencing long-term declines in their global populations. Audubon Vermont is working with sugarmakers and foresters to protect and improve habitat for birds and to ensure our sugarbushes are healthy, resilient and able to produce syrup long into the future.
In celebration of the Center’s 50th anniversary, Audubon is collecting stories, photos and other memorabilia to share with the community and to archive the many ways the Center has touched lives of people in the community over the years. Audubon staff looks forward to hearing specific sugaring stories if you have them. Please email us at vermont@audubon.com.
Want to be a Volunteer for the Sugar on Snow Party?
In order for these parties to be successful, we need help from people like YOU. Each Sugar on Snow party requires volunteers to lend a hand serving refreshments, keeping a fire going and help our visitor’s park. Please consider signing up to volunteer today and be added to the list of Vermonters that come together to keep our programs strong throughout the year: www.SignUpGenius.com/go/10C084DAFAB28A5FE3-audubon/15060140
Sugar on Snow Parties are generously sponsored by Main Street Landing.
For more information and photos, please contact Josie Palmer Leavitt at jleavitt@audubon.org.
Audubon Vermont’s mission is to protect birds, wildlife and their habitat through engaging people of all ages in education, conservation, stewardship and action. The 252 acres of conserved land is rich in a diversity of plant and animal species, has 5 miles of hiking trails that are open to the public daily and is a local resource in bird conservation and science-based, environmental education, offering affordable school programs and summer camps.